And then the Council was like, “Hmm, this seems like a lot of money. Let’s have this come back to Committee where you can explain more thoroughly the revenue implications of all this, and also please look into providing a transit pass option for employees instead.” So then it came back to Committee, but with very little supplemental information (PDF) and a really half-assed attempt to address the transit pass issue.

Pat Kernighan proposes no more free parking

So at the April 13th Committee meeting where this was discussed, District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan came out and said that she did not think we should be providing free parking to anyone because it was bad environmental policy to encourage people to drive to work and subsidize their driving. I agree.

And then the Committee was like, “Please bring this back with more answers and look into this bus pass thing more.” So then last Tuesday, the issue came back to the Committee (PDF) again. And at that meeting, Pat Kernighan started right off saying she had a different proposal than the one before them, and hers did not involve giving all these people free parking.

Instead, she suggested that we take the employees who would qualify for free parking under the proposal, and instead of giving them free parking, offer them discounted monthly rates for parking in the garage, and the cost to them would be based on how much money they make. So employees earning less than $55,000 a year would have the option to park for $40/month, those earning between $55,000 and $75,000 a year would be able to park for $60/month, and so on, up to a cost of $140/month for employees earning over $125,000/year.

So this elaborate pricing structure is like, way overly complicated and totally arbitrary and also just kind of misses the point of how we should not be subsidizing parking for anyone. But hey, at least she’s trying to address the problem in some way, which is more than anyone else on that Committee seems willing to do, so kudos to Kernighan for that.

Employee parking fees must wait for another day

So, anyway. Then this thing happened. I don’t even know what was going on here. So Pat Kernighan says she has this brand new proposal about employees paying for parking with this elaborate pay structure and everything, and the City Attorney is like “Um, hello! You guys cannot discuss this.” Because, you know, you totally can’t.

So the reasonable, and I would feel comfortable saying expected response to that being pointed out would be for the Chair of the Committee to be like “Oh, yeah. You’re so right. We totally cannot discuss that right now. Let’s schedule it for the next meeting!” And then they would, and it would take all of like two seconds. Right?

So. That is not what happened.

This is. Jean Quan was like, “Oh, whatever.” And the City Attorney was all “Um, no. I mean it.” And Jean Quan was like “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.” And the City Attorney was like “Um, no. Really.” And Jean Quan was like “Yeah, well we’re not going to pass it today no matter what, so it’s no biggie if we talk about it. Wev.” And the City Attorney was all “Um…yeah. It doesn’t really work like that.” And Jean Quan kept, like, arguing with her over whether or not they were going to discuss this proposal. And the City Attorney kept telling her that to do so would be a clear violation of the Brown Act, and seriously — we are not talking about some, like, obscure clause or something. The fact that whatever is going to be discussed at a public meeting has to be noticed to the public in advance of that meeting is like, the basic premise of the law.

And this went on for like, a minute and a half, and it only stopped because Pat Kernighan interrupted her and was like “Um, yeah. She’s right. Let’s just schedule it for later.”

And I realize this is an odd tangent and I’m sorry for spending so much space on it, but really, this was just, like, bizarre. I mean, how do you serve as an elected official for like twenty freaking years and not get the fundamentals of open meetings law? Like, what is that? I don’t understand how that happens. And transparent government is one of her campaign platform points!

I mean, I go to a lot of meetings. And a lot of times, you go watch these minor Boards or whatever and they totally do not follow the Brown Act and ignore their agendas and vote with secret ballots(!!!) and pull shit like that. And I get pretty irritated about that and really think their staff should stop them, but it’s not worth getting that worked up over because, you know, these Boards have no power and it just doesn’t matter that much. But when you’re on the City Council, that’s a whole different thing. Weird.

What about a transit pass?

Anyway. So then, the Committee was all like, “Okay, so now there’s this proposal to not give the employees free parking that we can’t discuss right now, so should we pass this plan for giving them free parking now? Oh, gee, I guess that wouldn’t really make sense then, would it? Yeah. Okay, well, so should we just pass part of this proposal now and then leave the rest for when we come back to discuss the rates? Oh, well since this is proposal is only about who we give free parking to and now we don’t actually want to give anyone free parking, I guess we can’t pass any of it. Okay. Geez. Hey! Didn’t we say something before about a bus pass?”

So. I would not hold my breath for City employees to be getting EasyPass anytime soon. At the last meeting where this was discussed, the Committee had said that they wanted to move forward with the EasyPass program with AC Transit, but that they didn’t want to pay anything for it. So the idea was that if we did it, employees could take the pass or not, but if they did, they would have to pay for it. Of course, EasyPass is a pretty incredible deal, even if you’re paying the whole price out of pocket, so it’s not hard to imagine people wanting to take advantage of it. (At the last meeting, Pat Kernighan was like “Oh yeah, I don’t even ride the bus. But I’d buy it!) And the City is broke, so I didn’t have any problem with making staff pay for the whole thing.

So what the Committee directed staff to do at the previous meeting, to see if we would be able to do EasyPass without it costing the City money, was to survey all the employees about if they would participate in an EasyPass program if they had to pay for it, So then at last week’s meeting, the Committee asked what kind of response they got from City employees about whether they would want the EasyPass if they had to pay for it, and staff was like “We asked the people who get free parking if they would rather have a bus pass and they all said no.” And the Committee was like “Yeah, obviously. We asked you to ask all the employees if they would do it. So when are you going to have those results for us?”

And staff was just like, “Oh, well we weren’t planning on asking people and coming back to you with that. We were just going to do it.” And the Committee was like “Huh?” And Assistant City Administrator Marianna Marysheva-Martinez was all “Well, since the employees will pay for it themselves, we’ll just tell people that if they want the pass at the discount rate AC Transit offers it to us at, they can buy it, and there’s no contractual obligation that you would have to approve.” And Pat Kernighan was like “Um, isn’t there a minimum number of participants?” And Marianna Marysheva-Martinez was like “Uh…yeah, we’ll get back to you.”

EasyPass Disconnect

So, um, as far as I understand it, that is not how EasyPass works. The employer enters into an agreement with AC Transit to do this program, and it’s not just like, “Okay, now you get near-free bus passes as much as you want. Just give us a call when you want another one!” You’re supposed to have a site coordinator and work with AC Transit to promote the program, and educate your employees about their transit options and also you pay for the whole program at once at the start of the year, based on a number of program participants you have agreed on.

The per participant price for EasyPass also varies widely based on the number of participants. Like, if you’re doing it for 1,000 people, the per pass price maxes out at $82/person, while the per-pass price for 100 people can run up to $115.

It seems to me that if Oakland were going to do an EasyPass program, which I totally think they should, there’s actually a lot the Council needs to talk about. Are employees expected to cover the whole cost of their pass? Okay, great. How are we going to make sure we make a deal for the right number of passes and don’t end up having to eat a fortune if we don’t end up selling that many? Who is going to be eligible for the pass? Full-time employees? Part-time employees? Temporary employees? Civilian employees? Sworn employees? Only employees who work at City Hall? Or everyone, throughout the City? If they do it for staff at all different locations, is that going to impact the pricing structure for the passes, since all these different locations must be in a variety of different level of service zones. Or is everyone’s pass, no matter where they work, going to be priced based on the level of service for City Hall? Right?

I mean, these are just a few of the questions that pop into my head about this. I’m sure that if I spent a little more time thinking about it, I would have lots more questions. The idea that staff thinks they can or that it would even be appropriate to enter into an EasyPass program agreement without talking to the Council about it is, frankly, terrifying.

But what’s even more disconcerting is that they just do not seem to be taking the direction to explore an EasyPass program seriously at all. Listening to staff talk about the EasyPass program, which they had been directed to investigate, at both last week’s meeting and the previous one, it sounded a lot to me like nobody at the City of Oakland had so much as bothered to pick up the phone and talk to anyone at AC Transit about it. And while it’s entirely possible I’m wrong about that, I would be very surprised to discover as much, because the information they are providing to the Committee seems like what you would get if you kind of glanced at the EasyPass website and didn’t even it read it very closely.

I mean, forgive my skepticism, but they couldn’t even get AC Transit’s name right in the most recent report (PDF), which, really. I mean, that’s just pathetic. And it isn’t like there isn’t precedent for staff being totally dismissive of transit options and not bothering to do any research about it whatever. I mean, back in January when the Committee asked staff about transit alternatives to free parking, staff replied with total confidence that the cost to giving a bus pass to employees was $90/month. Which is, of course, even more than it costs to buy the passes retail. And the premise in all their reports that out of like 5,000 people who work for the City, we should only expect 100 to use the program is just freaking preposterous. Anyway.

Don’t hold your breath for the paid parking either

And what about Pat Kernighan’s proposal to charge these employees different rates for parking based on how much money they make? Well, don’t be looking for that one on any agendas in the near future. Staff’s response to the proposal was that they will have to meet and confer with the unions before the Committee can talk about it any more.

You see, even though free parking isn’t spelled out as a benefit in the MOUs, since these employees have been getting free parking for so long anyway, it can be considered a benefit that’s being taken away anyhow, and so you can’t change it without talking to the union first. When the Committee asked how long it would take before the item could come back, the response they got was basically, “Don’t expect to see it anytime soon.”

You can watch the discussion below:

So I guess for now, we’ll just keep on giving an unspecified number of employees free parking that we could be renting out to the public and making money off of, and maybe someday we’ll do EasyPass, or maybe not. You know, whatever. Gotta love the City of Oakland!

Related Posts

• 04.09.2010: Oakland: Transit first only on paper
• 01.12.2010: Free parking for City employees. Why?

You may have read about this proposal yesterday on FutureOakland or maybe earlier in Jean Quan’s hysterical newsletter.

Campaign contribution and expenditure limits in Oakland

In short, the City Attorney has proposed that the existing Oakland campaign contribution and expenditure limits be doubled (PDF). The way it works right now is that you can either spend as much money as you want, but only take $100 donations, or you can agree to voluntarily spending limits and accept donations of up to $700 from individuals. Basically everyone takes the spending limits. Currently, the spending limit for the Mayoral race is $379,000.

Campaign contribution limits are by no means unique to Oakland. They exist at in State and Federal races, and many other cities have decided to impose contribution limits in their local races as well. An attachment to the report on this issue to the Ethics Commission lists the existing limits in other California cities (PDF), as does Jean Quan in her blog and newsletter. (Quan’s “comparative” list, BTW, conveniently only lists the cities that have lower limits than Oakland and omits those that have higher ones, like Santa Ana ($1,000), Anaheim ($1,700), Fresno ($3,600), and Sacramento ($3,000), Glendale ($1,000), as well as those that have no limits, like Bakersfield, Riverside, Stockton, Modesto, and San Bernadino.)

Why would we raise the limit?

Under our old election system, these limits applied separately in both the primary and general elections. That is, if you gave someone the maximum donation for their primary campaign, and the race happened to go into a runoff (as was the case with the 2008 At-large City Council election), you could give them the maximum donation again for their runoff campaign. This was because there were two elections, even though it was only for one office.

Now that we’re doing Ranked Choice Voting, we will no longer have two (or the potential for two) elections for municipal offices, only a single election in November. The City Attorney reasons (PDF) that since there will now only be one election where there used to be two, that single election should have the same total limits as used to exist for both elections combined. Additionally, the City Attorney argues that the extra money will allow candidates to educate voters about Ranked Choice Voting, which will be new to them in November.

Why wouldn’t we raise the limit?

Ethics Commission staff does not agree with this rationale (PDF), and notes that most local elections do not go to a runoff. The report further notes that it is the County, not individual candidates, that bears the responsibility of educating residents about the new voting system.

Another attachment to the staff report features 22 letters received about the proposal (PDF). One is in favor and 21 are against. Here is a sampling of what the letter writers have to say:

Is American turning into a country where only the rich can run for office and get elected? Are we turning into Great Britain before the American Revolution or France before the French Revolution? American was founded on the premise that anyone could run for office and become a representative of the people. With the rise of campaign donation limits it is obvious that only special interest will have great influence in who gets elected. This is a travesty of the American political system and it should be halted.

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I strongly oppose this. Lower limits help us stay more honest and make it more likely that the election is actually based on issues and qualifications. And the availability of extra funds to make higher donations to a campaign suggests to me that unethically high prices have been charged for services or products somewhere. Wouldn’t we all rather make our own decision about who (and what) to contribute our hard-earned money to than to have it made for us by Microsoft, or Sun, or Mechanics Bank, or an insurance company?

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These should be REDUCED NOT INCREASED. What are they thinking

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Being that I had a long term interest in Oakland, in a large part for its key value in keeping the wheels of commerce in the Bay Area running as best as possible for the benefit of the entire Bay Area as the key shipping port for Central and Northern California. Preamble: I beg your indulgence to describe two Campaign Finance options. Preamble: Presidential Candidate Obama once supported construction of a transcontinental high speed Freight-Only railway for common use of all rail lines. Given the absolute need to avoid, or duplicate, same-level road crossings (they kill over 300 a year), very costly tunnels and bridges, to keep the rails level and the new ability to optimize paths using the latest airplane and satellite GPS data and computer technology. It is my opinion that this project will be done, as soon as possible, possibly to put people back to work, all across the nation.

…

Option A. Make a new Finance Office of the Ethics Commission the recipient of all donation above some limit, for example, a Private Business could give X00s Dollars to one, or more Council Members up to the new allowed limit that you will set. And, the same donor may contribute YOOs Dollars to the new Ethics Commission Finance Office, without any limits, to be evenly divided among current Council Members running for re-election….

I guess the last one should get some credit for thinking outside of the box?

Basically, all the objections are premised on the idea that we need to keep money out of elections in order to preserve a level playing field and that low contribution limits accomplish that.

Why it doesn’t matter

So here’s the thing about money. There are always going to be people who have a lot of money. And here’s the thing about money and politics. Some of those people are always going to want to spend their piles of money to influence elections. And they are going to find a way to do it, no matter what you try to do to stop it. You just can’t. I’m sorry. But you can’t. And if you think that you’re going to keep money out of elections by imposing strict contribution limits, well, you’re delusional.

We have watched this play out on the State level, where individual contributions to a candidate are limited but independent expenditures on behalf of a candidate are not (so long as these expenditures are not coordinated with the campaign). We will soon watch it play out across the Country.

The result of contribution limits is not to reduce the amount of money spent on elections. Far from it. All that happens is a shift in where money gets spent. The candidate’s campaign becomes less important and the independent expenditures become more so. If you tell people who have lot of money to spend and want to spend it that they can’t give it to a candidate’s campaign, they will find another way to spend it to further their purposes. Sometimes these efforts may be inept and counterproductive, like those ridiculous and terrifying SAFE neighborhoods NOW signs that Oakland Jobs PAC plastered all over town to promote Kerry Hamill’s City Council campaign in 2008, or the “homocide” mailer, also promoting Kerry Hamill and also courtesy of Oakland Jobs PAC in 2008, or that horrifying chalk body outline mailer OakPAC sent out bashing Nancy Nadel the same year. But whether or not these expenditures effectively communicate their message is besides the point. It’s still money.

What you can do about it

So how do you combat the influence of people who have lots of money? Well, you give your own.

I don’t make a lot of money by any stretch of the imagination. $700 is a huge amount to me, and I’m not the sort of person who can just whip out the checkbook and drop seven hundred, or hell, even a hundred dollars without feeling it. But I maxed out my contributions to one local campaign last election cycle and I can say without a moment of hesitation that I would have given more if I had been allowed to. And I intend to do so again in 2010. Knowing that elections were on the way, I have spent the last year and a half slowly putting some money from every single paycheck away into a little personal donation pool so that I will have the ability to help the candidates who I want to see win.

I completely realize I’m way more invested in these things than the average person, and I obviously don’t expect every struggling Oaklander to save up for eighteen months so they can make hefty contributions to local campaigns. My point is simply that if you really want to give, you can do it, even if your means are limited.

So that’s my advice. Whatever happens with the Ethics Commission tonight and perhaps ultimately the City Council with respect to contribution limits, there’s going to be a ton of money in the Mayoral race. You can’t stop that. I’m sorry, I wish that weren’t the case, but it just is. You don’t like it? Too bad, you can’t change it. You want to do something about it? Give.

I remember vividly a message I received from someone working on a local campaign a few years ago after I had made my second donation. I had previously given the candidate $50, and then like a month or so later, as the election was drawing closer, I starting feeling really bad about the long odds they were up against, so I coughed up (not without difficulty) another $50. Within minutes, I got the following e-mail:

on behalf of the [redacted] campaign, I wish you would stop contributing money. For gosh sakes, we have people in [super rich neighborhood] living in 3 million dollar homes who only contribute $25 or take a sign.

That was just so sad to me. People in Oakland complain and complain and complain all the time about how frustrated they are with their entrenched, dysfunctional government, yet they don’t seem to be willing to do what it takes to change it. You want new leadership? Newsflash: campaigns cost money. Mailers are expensive. Door hangers are expensive. Walk pieces are expensive. Office space is expensive. It takes money to run. It just does. You can hate it all you want. I hate it. But hating it doesn’t change anything and neither does whining.

I’m not saying everyone needs to run around giving everybody the max or even close to it. And I’m not going to tell you who you should give to. But if you care about these things (and I assume you do if you’re reading this blog), and you find a candidate you sincerely want to see be the Mayor or City Councilmember or on the School Board or BART Board or Peralta Board or whatever, write them a check. If you want to reduce the influence of other people’s money, the way to do it is to dilute the importance of their money.

And whatever your first inclination is for an amount to donate, pause for a second and think about whether or not you can afford to give more. How much does who is running your city matter to you? How much do you want this person to win? What can you sacrifice to allow yourself to give a little bit more? One dinner out? Two? Ten? Think about it. Figure out what you can afford. Yeah, writing that check, in whatever amount you settle on, is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts Daddy Warbucks or whoever. But that’s just life. Deal with it.

The Public Ethics Commission will meet to discuss the proposal (PDF) at 6:30 PM tonight in Oakland City Hall Hearing Room 1.

The League of Women Voters can attest that Oakland City government lacks the tools to ensure that its records are easy for City staff and citizens to access and use. The Public Ethics Commission fields numerous complaints that have to do with missing records or failure to produce records. Last year this pattern of complaints led the PEC to propose to the City Council revisions to the Sunshine Ordinance (PDF) designed to set uniform records standards for the city. Despite strong support by the City Attorney and City Auditor, the Council’s Finance and Management Committee deferred the issue pending more study.

The proposal is finally coming back (PDF) to the Finance and Management Committee on December 15 (12 noon, City Hall Hearing Room 1). The League will be there to urge the adoption of the PEC’s recommendations (PDF). Oakland needs a framework for city policies and procedures, a systematic process for dealing with records that will be used throughout city government.

Basic records management is required by the California Public Records Act (CPRA), which requires that all public agencies make all their records, with some very few exceptions, accessible to the public. In order for records to be accessible, the city staff needs to be able to find them. The citizens of Oakland have a right to expect that their city government can and will comply with the requirements of the CPRA.

While there may be costs for putting a comprehensive records management system in place, having records in an efficient, easily accessible order will save the city money in the long run. Staff will spend less time searching for records and responding to complaints, and more time serving the public.

We can also expect savings from timely collection of records necessary to defend the city against lawsuits which now result all too often in unnecessarily long proceedings and/or unfavorable judgments and settlements.

In order to enact strong records management the city needs a strong policy – the records management ordinance changes to the Sunshine Ordinance – from the City Council and a strong commitment from the administration that it will enforce the policy. The City Clerk has made her statement of commitment by hiring a professional records manager to oversee the program. However, the records manager does not operate in a vacuum. Without full cooperation from all city departments, the records manager will not be able to do his or her job. The City Administrator must make a strong statement that records management has his full backing, and make it a high priority for everyone who does work for the city.

The proposal before the Finance and Management Committee on December 15

• streamlines and clarifies the definition of a city record to be “ all recorded information, regardless of media format or physical characteristics, that are produced, received, owned or used” by the city in connection with its affairs or legal obligations;
• adds the City Attorney and City Auditor to the Records Management Committee;
• provides for a review of the records management program by the Public Ethics Commission, with a public hearing;
• clarifies the roles of the City Clerk (development and implementation of records management program for all city elected officials), agency and department heads, and the Public Ethics Commission (authorized to investigate and report on specific allegations of non-compliance with records management program);
• clarifies that all city records are to be transferred to the City Clerk’s office upon termination of a contract or of an elected official’s term of office.

We need to let the City Council and City Administrator know that we expect them to follow up on this sane piece of legislation. We’re hoping for a good showing at the Finance and Management Committee next Tuesday, but everyone can send an email to or call the members of the committee:

• Jean Quan, committee chair (jquan@oaklandnet.com, 238-7004)
• Ignacio De La Fuente (idelafuente@oaklandnet.com, 238-7005)
• Pat Kernighan (pkernighan@oaklandnet.com, 238-7002)
• Nancy Nadel (nnadel@oaklandnet.com, 238-7003)

Let the committee members — and the entire Council — know that you want Oakland to operate in a transparent, professional manner, and that the enactment of a strong records management ordinance is a crucial first step.

Condo conversions were a big controversy a few years ago, but since then, have pretty much faded off the radar of everyone but professional affordable housing activists and developers. Now the issue is back, sort of.

Councilmembers Pat Kernighan and Rebecca Kaplan have introduced a proposal to make some changes to Oakland’s condo conversion rules (PDF), which will be considered at today’s Community and Economic Development Committee meeting (PDF).

Basically, sometimes apartment building owners decide they don’t want to own an apartment anymore and would like to turn their building into condominiums and sell the units off individually. In Oakland, however, this is not the easiest thing to do for most buildings. A 1981 law, designed to ensure a robust supply of rental housing, prohibits the conversion of an apartment building greater than four units into condominiums unless you have something called “conversion rights.”

In practice, conversion rights are a little silly. Basically, when someone builds a new apartment building, each unit gives them one conversion right. Then if someone else wants to convert their apartment building into condos, they go and buy the conversion rights needed to do so. So if I have a 20 unit apartment building I want to turn into condos, I have to go find someone who built at least 20 rental units and buy the conversion rights from him. In certain parts of the City, you can only buy conversion rights from buildings that are in the same area. The idea is, again, to guarantee that we preserve an adequate supply of rental housing, and to protect tenants from displacement if their apartments are converted.

The proposal (PDF) introduced by Councilmembers Kernighan and Kaplan would create a “Pilot Program” that allows up to 300 units in “higher rent” apartment buildings (buildings where the average rent for new tenants in the past two years has been over $2100 a month) to be converted over a period of two years without purchasing conversion rights. Instead, the building owner would pay the City a $15,000 per-unit fee for the conversions. Then after two years, it would be over.

Existing tenants in the buildings that want to convert would all have to be offered a rent controlled lifetime lease and units where tenants choose to take the lifetime lease could not be sold. If tenants choose to move instead of taking the lifetime lease, they wouldn’t get any money to help pay re-location costs. If tenants want to buy their apartment as a condo, they would get a 10% discount.

The fees paid to the City for the conversion rights would go to rehab of existing affordable housing. Additionally, the proposal would create more money for the City by creating a bunch of new condos, which will each be paying property taxes, transfer tax when they are sold, and parcel taxes.

There are two other features of the proposal, which I won’t get into that much right now. One would make it easier to convert some Tenant-in-Common properties to condos, and the other would clarify existing law to make it clear that if you build a new rental apartment building and then decide you want to convert it to condos, you’re allowed to use your own conversion rights to do so.

Anyway, Councilmembers Jane Brunner, Nancy Nadel, and Jean Quan do not like the proposal, and have introduced one of their own. Unlike Councilmembers Kernighan and Kaplan, they do not offer any explanation their rationale or analysis of the impacts of their proposed legislation. Instead, they submitted a simple chart outlining the highlights of some plan they want staff to turn into legislation. You can read the whole thing here (PDF). The key points are:

• Expand existing condo conversion ordinance so that it applies to buildings of 4 units or less, which it currently does not
• Cap conversions at 150 units per year and 150 units per Council district over 5 years
• 6 months notification, 15% discount, lifetime leases and first right of refusal for purchase for existing tenants in buildings to be converted
• The same inclusionary zoning proposal that keeps coming up before the Council and failing

The plan proposed by Councilmembers Brunner, Nadel, and Quan is not really worth commenting on now. I have written extensively in the past about inclusionary zoning, which is a tired, counterproductive, and failed concept (and appears to now be illegal for rental housing, although rental IZ is not part of their current proposal), and also totally irrelevant to the condo conversion issue currently on the table.

As for the limited conversion proposal from Councilmembers Kernighan and Kaplan, I find little to complain about. A supplemental report from CEDA staff (PDF) raises some legitimate questions about the proposed definition of “higher rent buildings” and potential obstacles to assessing the proposed impact fee, and those issues certainly deserve further discussion at Committee.

The report further criticizes the proposal for acting in isolation, instead of being part of a “comprehensive housing strategy,” which I think is just ridiculous. No, this isn’t a comprehensive housing strategy, it’s limited legislation intended to address limited issues, which is just fine. Not every single thing the City does has to be part of some overarching, long-term plan to address some giant issue. When you insist on doing things that way, nothing ever gets done.

Sure, I think it might be a little silly to go to all this trouble basically so one luxury apartment building can be converted into condos, but that’s really the fault of the people trying to tack all these other issues onto something limited and very specific. Like six people forwarded me this “action alert” from EBHO yesterday that hysterically claims:

The Oakland People’s Housing Coalition (OPHC) opposes Councilmember Kernighan’s condo conversion proposal as a bad deal for the city and a bad deal for tenants and affordable housing. Their proposal, if adopted, would create no new housing and would threaten displacement for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.

It doesn’t explain how, of course. The purpose of the condo conversion ordinance is to protect the supply of rental housing that is within the means of most people, and whether you agree with that goal or not, it’s hard to see how the poor renter in Oakland are going to be harmed by having ultra-expensive apartment buildings on the Lake become ultra-expensive condo buildings on the Lake. The protections for building’s existing tenants seem sufficient to me, although some form of relocation assistance would be nice and I don’t think too burdensome for the building owner.

The deplorable condition of much of Oakland’s affordable rental housing is as serious an issue as the supply, and to the extent that this proposal can supply some funds for rehabilitation, I think it’s a good thing. Additionally, the City’s revenue problems are not going away anytime in the near future, and this also provides a way to bring in more money for the City (PDF) (I think the estimates in that document are probably a little inflated, but the point remains that it’s a significant amount of money).

The Community and Economic Development Committee meets at 2 PM this afternoon. If you can’t make it down to City Hall, you can always catch it on KTOP, Comcast cable Channel 10 and available streaming online. I will be tweeting the meeting, so for real-time updates, you can always check out twitter.com/vsmoothe or follow the #oakmtg hashtag to get updates from others as well. (If anyone else tweets it, that is. Sometimes I’m the only one.)

I love the Layover. It’s been great to watch downtown transform over the past several years, and have all this wonderful new nightlife. But it has always bothered me a little bit that every new place that opens is so fancy. Penelope is very nice, and their spicy cocktails are delicious, but I’ve always just felt more comfortable hanging out somewhere a little more low key. The Layover is exactly the type of place I’ve been wishing would open downtown for years, and if you haven’t been yet, I strongly encourage you to go check it out. (It’s at 15th and Franklin. There is also a very flattering article in today’s Trib about it.)

Anyway, the reason I mention the Layover not just because I love it, but because this picture I snapped last night provides a nice example of a very common style of bar these days, where a DJ provides background music, but there is no dance floor.

This sort of bar currently exists in a legal grey area. The issue is whether or not such an establishment should be required to obtain a cabaret license if they are going to have DJs. Some do, others don’t. Some apply for one, only to find themselves sucked into an expensive and seemingly endless bureaucratic nightmare. Others send the City letters quoting the code governing cabarets and arguing that they should be exempt, and just cross their fingers that nobody will try to bother them about it. Others are simply told straight up by the City that they don’t need one. Still others do nothing and hope to fly under the radar. (I have not asked the owners of the Layover what route they choose, so I don’t know if they have a cabaret license or not, although I don’t remember seeing anything about a hearing.)

For the most part, the City has agreed that if all you’re doing is letting DJs play background music without a dance floor, then you don’t need a cabaret license. After all, the City already has regulatory power over bars through permitting alcohol sales, so there’s really no need to add another layer of hassle. But as we all know, the City can be infuriatingly inconsistent, and every so often, the fun police will do a little run around town issuing warnings (and sometimes tickets) to such businesses for acting as an unlicensed cabaret. (In one case last year, a bartender was threatened with a cabaret ticket after an office saw him changing a CD behind the bar.)

DJ bars are not the only type of business unfairly impacted by the City’s confusing cabaret law. Coffee shops that want to offer low key live entertainment may also find themselves subject to the annoying and expensive cabaret permitting process. Requiring a cabaret permit for any live music leads to ridiculous situations like the one Piedmont Avenue’s Caffe Trieste found themselves in a few years ago, where they wanted to have people occasionally sing opera music, but didn’t qualify for a permit because they were located too close to the library. The situation was eventually resolved by an amendment to the law (PDF) that allows the City Administrator’s office to overrule the 300 feet from a school or library requirement at their discretion, but the underlying absurdity of the law remained unchanged.

Anyway, the good news is that the City Council is finally talking about cabaret reform. A revision to the cabaret ordinance (PDF) proposed by Councilmembers Nancy Nadel and Rebecca Kaplan will be discussed by the Council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday. The bad news is that the proposed reforms are stupid.

Here is our current definition of a cabaret:

A cabaret shall be construed to include any place where the general public is admitted where entertainment is furnished by or for any patron or guest present upon the premises including but not limited to singing vaudeville and dancing and where liquid refreshments or foods are sold, provided however that any place where entertainment is furnished by the mechanical or electronic reproduction or pre-recorded music or radio broadcasts or by motion picture shall not be construed to be a cabaret within the meaning of this section unless dancing privileges are afforded in connection therewith.

Clearly, the law is antiquated. You might think that now that we’re finally getting around to revising the ordinance, it might be a good opportunity to strike references to, oh, I don’t know, vaudeville from our municipal code. As if.

What is need is a fairly simple revision of the law to clarify what is and what is not a cabaret. Special cabaret restrictions and regulation makes sense for the City, since the large crowds generated by live entertainment can lead to special problems. The easiest way to address the inconsistent enforcement of cabaret rules would to amend the definition so that it only applies to large venues with dance floors or amplified live music.

Nadel and Kaplan’s recommendation is twofold. One, that businesses with an occupancy rate of 50 people or fewer and whose primary zoning is not “entertainment,” will not have to get a cabaret permit. That part makes sense.

The second half doesn’t. Instead, these businesses will now have to obtain something called a “small cabaret exemption.” The proposed cost to apply for the exemption is $600, with an annual $250 renewal fee.

So basically, this proposal takes a group of businesses that were not required to get a cabaret license under most interpretations of existing law, and imposes on them a brand new regulation and annual cost. The staff report estimates that between 50 and 100 businesses would be forced to apply for the new “exemption.”

Cabaret reform should be an opportunity to make it easier for nightlife businesses to operate. Instead, we are talking about making it even more difficult. I just don’t get it. The Council is always talking about how they want to make Oakland more friendly to small businesses. Any small business owner will tell you that the best thing the City can do to make life better for them is to just leave them alone. I doubt you could find a single one willing to say that the City can help them by demanding a couple hundred extra dollars per year.

Will the Public Safety Committee care? I don’t know, probably not. After all, the last time cabaret licenses came up, when there was a proposal to double the permit fee from $300 to $600, Committee member Jean Quan’s response was:

They can afford it. Cabarets make a lot of money.

The Public Safety Committee meets at 4 PM on Tuesday (PDF). At the same time, they will discuss a proposal to allow certain cabarets to obtain permits that would allow them to stay open past two (read about it in the Oakbook). That idea also came up a few years ago, and back then, the Committee wasn’t having it. Jean Quan said then that she would rather see the law changed to force them to close earlier. Sigh.

For today, I want to take care of a little housekeeping around here, and then highlight a number of cool things going on in Oakland tomorrow night.

First, I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to complete my reader survey. I received nearly 300 responses and your feedback really is helpful. A recent computer meltdown unfortunately means the loss of many months of work on the site update. Redoing work that’s already been done is always easier than building things from scratch, so I hope it won’t delay the upgrade for too long, but I think we’re probably looking at the end of October at this point. Sorry. Still, there were a lot of decisions I had been struggling with, and your feedback has been instrumental in guiding the choices I have to make.

A number of people asked if I’d be sharing the results of the survey, and I will. But not just yet. I will, however, give you a taste of some of the answers that I found most surprising. First, I was shocked to see that more of you (80%!) report getting your Oakland news from the San Francisco Chronicle than anywhere else. Are you guys aware that the Chronicle barely covers Oakland? Only 65% of you said you read the Trib. Show some love for the hometown paper, folks! I could (and often have) spend hours talking about my frustrations with the local traditional media, and I agree that the Trib could do any number of things better, but at least they write about Oakland!

I was also floored to discover than even though like 90% of you say you live in Oakland, about 30% reported not voting in the special election. dto510 told me to put that question on, and I thought it was silly (“of course all my readers vote. how could anyone possibly spend time reading something so wonky and not vote”). I know I have at least one reader who isn’t old enough to vote, but the rest of you have no excuse.

Anyway, moving on. I also want to extend my deep appreciation to everyone who stepped up and pulled together a guest post for me while I was on break. I hate the idea of leaving you guys with nothing to read, and thanks to the contributions of Max Allstadt, Steve Brown, Vivek B, John Klein, Bob LaMartin, Bruce Nye, and Rebecca Kaplan, that didn’t happen. You guys are all awesome, thank you so much!

Finally, I want to clear up some confusion. A reader who saw me at one of Jean Quan’s meetings about how she wants to be Mayor last week asked if that meant I was supporting her candidacy. The answer is no. Similarly, someone who saw me at a Don Perata event this Spring had asked if that meant I was supporting his candidacy. The answer to that question is also no.

The Mayoral election is, at a minimum, nine months away, and more likely, thirteen months away. I understand why people running for the seat want to start the race now, but for my part, it’s way too early to even think about. When I make a decision about who I’m supporting, I will say so here. Until then, I will likely attend any number of campaign events – for Jean Quan, for Don Perata, and any any number of other people. If Paulette Hogan (who I miss, does anyone know what happened to her?) had a Mayoral campaign event, I would go to that too. So for now, if anyone sees me at any kind of campaign event, they shouldn’t read anything into my presence there except that I am, just like everyone else, curious about what the candidates have to say.

Now, onto the fun part. Tomorrow night one of those evenings that’s just so lousy with cool events that it makes me wish I had a time turner because I would go to all of them if I could.

First off, I will be spending my evening at the Fruitvale-San Antonio Senior Center (3301 E. 12th Street) for the fifth community workshop about the Central Estuary Specific Plan. I was hoping to find time to write about the existing conditions report before the meeting, but I’ve up to my ears in a backlog of work, both for the blog and for my actual job, and I another thing for me to cover and getting all caught up is taking a little bit of time.

As you guys might remember from earlier this year, I tragically lost my Estuary beat writer to grad school, and while we all of course wish him the very best in his studies, it’s yet another thing to add to my very full plate. Until further notice, I’ll be covering this process myself, although I really liked having someone who lived in the area doing it. So if any readers out there live in or near the Specific Plan area and would be interested in covering the issue from this point on, please don’t hesitate to contact me about it.

Anyway, at tomorrow’s meeting, attendees will be get to discuss the Specific Plan’s draft alternatives. As you may remember from our little primer on Specific Plans, once the existing conditions have been studied and cataloged, the next step is to evaluate three different possible approaches to future growth in the area. And that’s what going on at this workshop. It’s a large area, and there are a lot of directions it could go, so if you’re interested in this process at all, this particular meeting should be well worth your time. The meeting (PDF) runs from 6:30 to 9.

If transportation is more your thing, you may want to head over to Eastmont Mall for At-large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan’s transportation town hall (PDF). AC Transit Director Joel Young, MTC Minority Citizens Advisory Committee Member Jacquee Castain, and California Senior Leaders Alliance Co-Chair Frank Rose will all be on hand to discuss the issues impacting transit service in East Oakland, including AC Transit and BART service cuts, proposed new transit projects, State budget cuts, and how the City of Oakland can help improve services. The meeting will take place in suite 37 on the first floor of the Eastmont Town Center and run from 6 to 8 PM.

Finally, if you don’t like the idea of spending your evening geeking out over transportation or planning, you should definitely make your way down to Jack London Square for their full moon night market. I’ve found myself spending a lot more time in Jack London recently, and I have to say, it’s just thrilling to see things picking up down there. Every time I go, there’s lots of people strolling the square, the outdoor seating at Heinold’s is nearly full, and there are so many couples making out at all the benches along the water that it is practically impossible to find an out of the way place to go smoke. The new building looks great and Bocanova is always packed (I haven’t been yet. I hear it’s good, but expensive), and The Oakbook’s art gallery is charming.

And what better time to take it all in than when the Square is going to be even more crowded than usual. Along with all the usual street fair type vendors, there will be all sorts of entertainment, including live music, craft demonstrations, and OMG an outdoor ice skating rink! You’ll be able to skate all month long, but the rest of it is just a one night only deal. That’s tomorrow from 5:30 to 9:30.

With all those great options, who would even dream of staying home?

Before we get started, let’s have a little refresher on the downtown zoning proposal (PDF), specifically the heights, since that was the main issue of concern last night. Under the plan, downtown is divided into seven height areas. In each of those areas, there are two different height limits. One is the base height. The base of the building can take up the whole lot that the building is built on. For most of the zones, the maximum allowed base height is 85 feet. Depending on what kind of building you have, that’s going to be between 5 and 8 stories. For two of the zones, the maximum base height is 55 feet. For the highest intensity zone, which runs along Broadway, the maximum base height is 120 feet.

The second limit is the called the tower height. This refers to the total height of the building. Portions of buildings above the base are referred to as the tower. Unlike the base, the tower portion of a building cannot take up the entirety of its lot – it has to be smaller. How much smaller depends on which height area you are in. In two height areas, no towers of any sort are permitted. In the other five height areas, the maximum tower heights range from 170 feet to unlimited. Additionally, in each height area, there is a limit to what percentage of the lot size the tower can take up and to how large the floorplate of the tower can be. This chart (PDF) lists all these limits in detail, and the map below shows what parts of downtown are assigned each height area.

I realize that’s probably too small to read. You can click here (PDF) for a larger version.

The purpose of these requirements, which force reduced bulk on the taller portion of buildings to preserve space between buildings for light and air, and also to minimize the shadows cast on the street. I happen to like the shade, and therefore am not much of a fan of the mandated tower and base form, but lots of people came out to various zoning meetings complaining about how they don’t want skyscrapers blocking all the sunlight downtown, and everyone decided this was the best way to address that issue.

Anyway, after more than a year of discussion at the Planning Commission, the new zoning finally came before the City Council last night. Let’s get the outcome out of the way first. The Council passed the zoning as proposed by staff (PDF), with a few changes:

• 14th Street and 13th Street between Madison and Harrison, which staff had proposed to be height area 5 (85 foot base height limit, 400 foot tower height limit) will be “temporarily” zoned as height area 2 (85 foot height limit) until we can complete a study of “view corridors” to the Trib Tower and City Hall
• Lakeside Drive between 14th and 17th, which had been proposed as height area 3 (55 foot base height, 170 foot tower height limit) will become height area 1 (55 foot height limit)
• Any project completing an Environmental Impact Report will have to study whether views of the Trib Tower and City Hall will be impacted by the project
• For 1443 Alice St. and 222 19th Street, two parcels which currently have applications in process for developments that would not conform to the new zoning (but would have been permitted previously), the Council decided not to exempt the lots from the new zoning, as had been suggested at Committee, but instead give direction to the Planning Commission when those projects come up for approval that the Council does not want their non conformance with the new zoning to be held against them, and that they should be considered on their own merits.

Larry Reid and Ignacio De La Fuente voted no, Desley Brooks abstained (all three had supported an earlier, failed motion, that would not have reduced the heights in those areas), and the remainder of the Council voted yes.

The outcome isn’t horrible, but the discussion was exceedingly frustrating. After like an hour of public comment, Nancy Nadel kicked things off by introducing a proposal to reduce heights along Lakeside to 55 feet, which she justified by saying that at the community meetings she had hosted about height limits along the Lake over two years ago, everyone wanted to prohibit tall buildings “except for an occasional seeded person from OBA“, who had been sent “to make sure there wasn’t a consensus.” I know I should be used to it by now, but it really never ceases to amaze me how proud Nadel is to completely dismiss the perspective of everyone who doesn’t agree with her. I mean, it’s one thing to say that people who don’t share your viewpoint are wrong and then explain why you think so- that’s normal. But in her world, if she doesn’t like what you’re saying, you don’t even exist. And for the record, there were plenty of people advocating against height limits at those meetings who live in the area and didn’t have a thing to do with the OBA, they just happen to appreciate density.

Anyway. She went on about how we should take advantage of this opportunity to control building heights so that people who live in historic areas won’t end up feeling like they’re “trapped” in a “cavern” all the time. Ugh.

Pat Kernighan started off strong, pointing out that there’s more to the zoning proposal than just height limits, and that the new zoning should encourage more active street level uses and a more pleasant pedestrian experience. Then it went downhill. She added that while she supports the view corridor study, she doesn’t like that the discussion has only been about views of iconic buildings, and that she’s interested in other views, such as those experienced by pedestrians as they’re walking around the Lake, particularly the views of sunlight between tall buildings, and that staff should consider those as well when they study view corridors.

She wasn’t into the OHA’s request to exempt the Lake Merritt BART Station Specific Plan area, saying that since there are currently no height limits in the area, and the new zoning includes some height limits, the new zoning will actually be more protective for people concerned about height, apparently having forgotten that there are other factors besides height that limit the size of new buildings. Noting that the Specific Plan will supercede the new zoning, she said she was fine with the temporary rezoning in the meantime.

She said that she was generally supportive of the height map, but agreed with Nancy Nadel’s proposal to take the stretch of Lakeside Drive between 14th Street and 17th Street and limit the heights there to only 55 feet, reasoning that since most of the existing buildings along that area are around 170 feet tall, limiting the heights on the remaining parcels will “break up” the taller buildings so that people walking around the Lake can retain a sense of light and air.

OMG, this was so annoying. I mean, that stretch of Lakeside is already basically all high rises, and there are four small buildings in between. Two are cute and it would be sad to lose them. The other two are hideous eyesores that should be torn down and replaced. Since this street represents such a miniscule portion of downtown, I don’t really care that much that we’re not going to let anyone build anything there in practice, but the principle of it is just so maddening. Nothing even remotely tall is permitted along the vast majority of the Lake! I just don’t understand how people can sit there and act as if putting up two buildings the same size as all the others on like two blocks is going to ruin Lake Merritt and then have everyone respond as if that’s a credible thing to say. It’s preposterous.

Kernighan went on the explain that while she does support taller building heights along 14th Street, she is also very concerned about these mysterious views, and was therefore okay with the temporary lower height limit until the view corridor study is complete.

Then Jean Quan started babbling about how Beijing looks so different now than when she visited in the 70s, and how it’s been built up way too much and she doesn’t want that to happen to Oakland. Honestly, I really don’t think she has much to worry about there. Once she finished her ode to old Beijing, she moved on to complaining about how she didn’t want to vote on the zoning because she couldn’t understand it without being able to see a map.

But apparently it wasn’t quite so bad as all that, because she did vote on it in the end. She said that she had tried to read the proposal over the weekend and even got in her car and drove around downtown a little bit to understand it. I think we were supposed to be impressed that she put in so much effort. I’ll say I found it underwhelming and leave it at that.

She then pompously informed the room that one of the problems with the zoning proposal is that it only addresses heights, and doesn’t consider where and how much of downtown should be housing or office, and suggested that the Council should hold a special workshop sometime to look at downtown in this broader sense, since she didn’t see any good reason not to take a few more months on something so important. The new zoning, of course, does actually address that pretty clearly, but hey – 37 pages is a lot to read. I can see how she might have missed it.

Rebecca Kaplan pointed out that the downtown proposal is just a small piece of the zoning update for the entire city, and that we need to move it forward so we can focus on the rest of Oakland, then reminded everyone that there had actually been a healthy discussion of a wide variety of issues during the year-plus long series of hearings, which she knew since she’d actually been to Planning Commission meetings about the zoning and witnessed the process firsthand.

Unlike her counterparts on the dais, she didn’t seem to have trouble understand the maps in front of her, but did note that the graphics could be better, and said that she wants three dimensional images and improved maps for the specific plans, and added that she’d like to return to the issue of downtown parking requirements in a separate discussion after recess. (I don’t know what was wrong with the map above, but the various Councilmembers complained and complained and complained about not having a map to look at incessantly all night long, despite the fact that it was projected right in front of them.)

She questioned what the goal of the view corridors is, saying that while she doesn’t oppose them, she worried about them being overly broad and vague – should the view of City Hall from her Temescal roof be protected?

Then it was Jane Brunner’s turn. UGH. She got off to a moderately promising start, saying she likes the idea of having more tall buildings downtown so they stay out of the neighborhoods. Then she said she didn’t want every building to look exactly the same, and asked what they can do to guarantee a mix of building heights on every block.

Eric Angstadt explained that the market and how much people can charge for space has a lot more to do with how tall people build that anything the City is going to do, then pointed out that the vast variances in lot sizes downtown pretty much ensure varied building heights, since you need a really big lot to build a really big building.

You might think that this is the sort of thing someone might have learned after making decisions about land use for twelve and a half years. Apparently you would be wrong. Anyway, she seemed satisfied with the answer. Then she said she thought we should do something to make sure we preserve light and air in between all the tall buildings, and wanted to know how that issue could be addressed. Eric Angstadt patiently explained that this is the entire point of the tower and base model that the entire height map is based on. You might think that at that point, she’d be embarrassed enough about not knowing anything about the proposal in front of her and just shut up, but you would be wrong again. Instead, she countered that the tower reductions sounded fine for some height areas, but she was concerned about how to address the sunlight issue in areas that allowed for unlimited height. Did she look remotely chastened after it was explained to her that these areas also have tower bulk reduction requirements? I’ll let you guess.

Then more clueless questions, followed by complaints about how wrong it is that they’re being asked to make such a big decision without any maps (at this point, the map was still being projected on the screen, BTW). Eventually they passed the zoning with the modifications I noted above.

Like I said before, I don’t really think the outcome was that bad, but watching the discussion was simply infuriating. Everyone seemed to agree that the downtown zoning was really important, because they kept saying so over and over and over again, but apparently it wasn’t important enough to take the time to understand it enough to have a informed discussion. Instead, it was just “tall buildings” this and “sunlight” that with apparently little knowledge of what the rules actually do allow. With the exception of Rebecca Kaplan, they all sounded like the type of moderately informed but highly opinionated people you always somehow get stuck talking to when you go to a barbeque of someone you don’t know very well. There is nothing wrong with these people, I suppose, but one might think that since the City Council’s most important power is the ability to govern land use, and between them, they have seventy one and a half years experience wielding this power, they would collectively have a slightly more sophisticated grasp of how land use and zoning work that your boss’s chatty neighbor.

If I hadn’t agreed before that we should have three dimensional modeling to accompany zoning proposals, I certainly would have after last night’s meeting. It appears that without visual aids, it was beyond the ability of much of the City Council to understand the very clear charts in the zoning code.

I remain concerned in general about the Council’s tenuous grasp of how zoning works. With the citywide zoning update ahead of them, there are going to be many controversial and important issues they’ll have to address in the coming year or two, and I’m pretty sure we would end up with a better result if the decision makers were at least relatively well educated about zoning. Perhaps they should schedule themselves a special workshop to receive a “Planning 101″ lecture.

Everyone will have until next week to submit their ideas in writing to be considered on the 30th (when the final budget is passed), but seriously, it’s getting a little late at this point. I mean, everybody had all weekend to respond to the proposal submitted on Friday, so it was really weird to see all this consternation absent basically any suggestions at the meeting last night. At one point, District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who was irate over the proposed cuts to the Second Start Adult Literacy program, said that more cuts will need to be made elsewhere, but she didn’t know where, and that she’d have to talk to the various department heads to figure out what other cuts should be made. HELLO! WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST MONTH AND A HALF, WOMAN! O.M.F.G. Anyway.

While I was hoping to write up something about the meeting for today’s blog, the late of hour of adjournment, combined with my need for at least some sleep, means that I wasn’t quite able to get it together. But don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you with nothing.

A blog doesn’t really lend itself to live coverage of public meetings. But you know what does? Twitter. dto510 loves Twitter. I kind of hate it. Regular readers know that parsimony is not exactly my strong suit, and Twitter’s 140 character limit hardly lends itself to thorough and fair discussion of public policy. But it does have its uses, and live meeting coverage is one of them.

Anyway, in lieu of a real blog for today, I offer you an archive of my twitter updates from last night. There’s a lot of stuff in here I want to write about in more detail later, but I figure this little preview is probably helpful for that, because if people have questions about anything, they can ask them in the comments and I’ll make sure to address them in the post.

Vsmoothe: JQ: Property taxes now expected to be down 4%, higher than estimated previously

V Smoothe: Local 21 (Oakland’s professional employees union) opposes Council proposal to NOT plunge city into $50 million greater debt

Vsmoothe: Carl Chan (Chinatown Chamber of Commerce) threatens to bring 100 people to next meeting if Council cuts Neighborhood Service Coordinators

Vsmoothe: KTOP feed obviously overtaxed, barely working, sound in and out, very annoying.

Vsmoothe: Council on 30 minute break, will return at 7 to resume budget discussions. Accepting speaker cards until 7

Vsmoothe: Public comment over, Council discussing budget now

Vsmoothe: Nancy Nadel says 30% of adults in Oakland don’t read above 4th grade level and that the figure has nothing to do with ESL

Vsmoothe: Nancy Nadel strongly opposes proposed cuts to library adult literacy program, says it is a public safety issue.

dto510: @vsmoothe Isn’t fourth grade level reading considered literate? I agree literacy is important, but library isn’t best place. OUSD maybe?

Vsmoothe: Nancy Nadel says she doesn’t know what else to cut, would have to go back and ask department heads about what they think

Vsmoothe: Desley Brooks opposes elimination of small projects design group, who are building her recording studio. Calls them “necessary.”

Vsmoothe: Desley Brooks opposes cuts to Second Start, thinks we should open branches fewer hours instead.

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan thinks its fine to charge for using Tool Lending Library, since it will still be cheaper than Home Depot.

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan also wants to retain Second Start program

dto510: @vsmoothe Um, aren’t libraries supposed to be free? They’re not supposed to be revenue-producing, but a public service

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan: We are spending to much money on police at special events where they aren’t needed

dto510: @vsmoothe Don’t event permit fees include police costs?

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan: would like to charge a fee on every car in the city, but does not like charging high fees for parking tickets.

dto510: @vsmoothe Is it just me or does that make no sense?

Vsmoothe: @dto510 We used to not make festivals pay for all of the police costs. Now we do, but festivals can’t afford it and are getting cancelled.

Vsmoothe: Jean Quan: this is a rolling budget, will have plenty of opportunity to revise later.

Vsmoothe: @dto510 It doesn’t if you know anything about the issue. Someone should buy her a copy of HCOFP for her birthday

dto510: @vsmoothe: When’s Pat’s birthday? If only she were on Facebook

Vsmoothe: Larry Reid wants to know how he can get his ideas to balance budget considered, besides saying them at the meeting

Vsmoothe: Jane Brunner says she’s learned that determining what is core is a process you need a seasoned public administrator to help you with.

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan: runaway overtime costs undermine the budgeting process, how do we keep police dept. overtime in check?

Vsmoothe: Jane Brunner: We have 10 public hearings ahead of us, need to be moving faster.

Vsmoothe: Council approves sending layoff notices to employees proposed for layoffs in Mayor’s budget, but that have not been objected to by Council.

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan says she can’t find anything in police department that is not a core service

Vsmoothe: Desley Brooks says lots of things in police department aren’t core, we have too many people in dispatch

Vsmoothe: Desley Brooks: should be a cap on overtime officers can work. V Smoothe: would we need less overtime if we had more police?

Vsmoothe: Parks and Rec appears out of nowhere to say that if the Council doesn’t pass the full budget tonight, it will be disaster for them

Vsmoothe: Jane Brunner to Parks and Rec: where the hell have you been for the last month? why tell us this NOW?

Vsmoothe: Assistant City Admin: don’t listen to them, it’s fine.

Vsmoothe: Now onto public hearings, Sanjiv Handa out of room

Vsmoothe: On every item, Brunner makes a big show out of calling Sanjiv Handa for comment Everyone in room laughs uproariously every time.

dto510: @vsmoothe Why does Parks and Rec need budget immediately?

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan recuses self from item on delinquent business taxes, then leaves. Pat Kernighan speculates RK must owe delinquent taxes

Vsmoothe: @dto510 Nobody knows.

dto510: @vsmoothe So, is it over? Any decisions? Are the NCPCs losing their budgets?

Vsmoothe: @dto510 No decisions on budget, layoff notices will be sent out to employees proposed for layoffs, except layoffs those Council objects to

Vsmoothe: @dto510 Not yet, NSCs reorganization item not up yet. Currently, Sanjiv Handa is taking his 20 minutes to speak.

Vsmoothe: Jean Quan: We narrowly missed downgrade from one agency, will probably get downgrade from another

Vsmoothe: Desley Brooks and Rebecca Kaplan: City organizational restructuring should not be discussed tonight, should go to Committee first

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan and IDLF: OK with voting on restructuring tonight, support all parts of it except moving Neighrhd Svc Coordntrs out of OPD.

Vsmoothe: Council votes on restructuring, Neighborhood Service Coordinators will remain in OPD

dto510: @vsmoothe: NSCs are the most controversial, but what else is involved in restructuring?

Vsmoothe: Onto Master Fee Schedule, Rebecca Kaplan says we should raise meter rates to $2, not $1.75.

Vsmoothe: Jean Quan opposes raising meters higher than $1.75, opposes any fees on Tool Lending Library.

Vsmoothe: @dto510 Move Personnel out of Finance & Management, to become its own department, Human Resources, move marketing to CEDA.

dto510: How many people are following the #Oakland budget with @vsmoothe’s Twitter instead of the TV? It’s like Iran up in here.

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan opposes raising peak hour meter rates, thinks we need to talk about it more and warn public first.

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan: I would rather raise all meters to $2/hour than raise some to $3/hr during peak hours.

Vsmoothe: Why is it SO HARD for the Council to understand the basics of what they need to vote on and what they don’t? It’s pathetic.

Vsmoothe: Jane Brunner: OK with pilot program for increased peak hour parking rates, but only in small area, see how it works.

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan: Can we start pilot program in your district, then?

dto510:@vsmoothe OK, I don’t care when her birthday is, Pat is getting a present from me next week.

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan opposes proposal to eliminate proposed fees for Tool Lending Library from Master Fee Schedule.

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan thinks if we raise peak hour meter rates, every restaurant in Chinatown will close.

dto510: @vsmoothe: @transbay It does seem fair to apply peak-hour parking pricing to places other than downtown. Like Rockridge

transbay: @dto510 Are you getting her Shoup??

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan says a small pilot program for peak hour parking is good idea, suggests Uptown as location

Vsmoothe: @transbay Watching this, I think I need to buy copies for the entire Council. It’s horrendous.

Vsmoothe: Nancy Nadel opposes higher peak hour parking for Uptown because there is a parking shortage there. UGH!!!!

dto510: @vsmoothe Uptown is too small and too dead to be a good test for peak parking pricing

Vsmoothe: @dto510 I agree it’s stupid to do it in such a small area, but Nancy’s logic is wrong

dto510: @vsmoothe @transbay Also, parking shortage is reason to do peak pricing. It doesn’t work there b/c parking surplus.

Vsmoothe: Peak hour parking proposal = $3/hour from 10-2, busiest times.

Vsmoothe: Council votes to approve fees to use Tool Lending Library. Nancy Nadel abstains because she doesn’t understand.

Vsmoothe: Council confused about proposed parking ticket fees (PDF). New fees would cost $10 more each than on chart, b/c of prev aprvd state pass-through.

Vsmoothe: Council not capable of adding 10 to numbers before them, pulls fee proposal. Will discuss when it returns next meeting with new chart.

Vsmoothe: Nancy Nadel opposes imposing parking tax on large diesel truck parking, says truckers are too poor to afford it.

dto510: I gotta replace my #Oakland library card before the fee doubles

MaxAllstadt: I think the Council should fine people $5 every time they refer to San Francisco as “The” City in a meeting. It ain’t the only city!

Vsmoothe: Nancy Nadel: you shouldn’t tax people when they do something you want them to. R Kaplan: Then I should not pay sales tax to buy a bicycle?

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan: I am “flopping back and forth in the wind on this issue.”

dto510: @vsmoothe Hehe. What are they talking about?

MaxAllstadt: This is ridiculous. I’m going to bed.

Vsmoothe: @dto510 Imposing parking tax on large truck parking.

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan and Jean Quan suggest we have a lower parking tax rate for truck parking.

dto510: @vsmoothe How is parking big-rigs something the city wants ppl to do? I have no idea where NN is coming from on this.

Vsmoothe: @dto510 The idea is if they parking in special areas just for them, it keeps them out of neighborhoods.

dto510: @Vsmoothe Ah. Well, the city should just ban big-rig parking in neighborhoods. Lotsa ways to justify that

Vsmoothe: Scott Peterson: Chamber of Commerce convened a meeting, and concluded that tax incentives for businesses would be helpful to Oakland

Vsmoothe: Scott Peterson cont.: Also concluded that study is needed to see if incentives would be revenue negative, positive, or neutral.

Vsmoothe: @dto510 Re: big-rig parking. It is already illegal in neighborhoods.

Vsmoothe: Jane Brunner doesn’t like using stimulus funds for traffic signal improvements. Thinks we should do something “unique” and “creative.”

Vsmoothe: IDLF opposes golden handshake proposal (PDF).

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan and Pat Kernighan support golden handshake (early retirement)

VSmoothe:Glde Hndshke = Eligible employees would have option of retiring early in exchange for 2 years additional service credit towards retirement

[I don't know why I didn't write anything about the conclusion of this issue. Maybe because I was struggling with how to talk about it in so few words. Basically, they decided to do it, but only for certain classifications.]

Vsmoothe: Pat Kernighan: There are many very narrow streets where people routinely park on sidewalk. Those people should not be fined.

Vsmoothe: Rebecca Kaplan: We have an incredible epidemic of abuse of disabled parking placards, should be enforced as much as possible.

Vsmoothe: Council not comfortable raising fine for locking a child into a car (PDF) from $30 to $100.

dto510: @vsmoothe There is no excuse for parking on the sidewalk. If a street is too narrow for parking, then parking shouldn’t be allowed.

Vsmoothe: Jane Brunner: If your kid gets locked in the car, it’s pretty scary. The police come. You shouldn’t have to pay a fine also.

Vsmoothe: Jean Quan: Um, sometimes people leave their kid in the car and the kid dies. Jane Brunner: Oh yeah, nevermind.

Vsmoothe: Meeting is over! Bedtime!

transbay: @vsmoothe Is Pat aware that sidewalk parking is a violation of both state and federal law?

Vsmoothe: @transbay She says it shouldn’t be enforced in areas where the streets are so narrow that people have to park on sidewalk.

Vsmoothe: @transbay She says she’s okay with the fine is someone is parked perpendicular across a big sidewalk on a normal street

Vsmoothe: @dto510 Pat says that if they do enforcement of that in certain neighborhoods with narrow streets, there will be a “revolt”

dto510: @vsmoothe Those streets should be fixed! I know where she’s talking about, but it’s not her district

Now, the Mayor’s out of here and back to DC in two years, so of course, he doesn’t care. Send Oakland deeper into debt? Why not? It won’t be his problem. The Council, on the other hand, well, one, they actually live here and will have to suffer the consequences of whatever decision is made, and also they’re going to have to deal with it (and maybe even try to get people to vote for them again) when the FY011-13 budget process rolls around. And they’re starting to become painfully aware of just how much it sucks when short-sighted decisions you made a while ago cause it was expedient come back to haunt you.

Anyway, they’ve been pretty upfront since the beginning that they are not willing to stop paying the internal service funds. Which puts them in the unfortunate position of having to find another $24 million somewhere.

At Tuesday’s Council meeting (which starts at 3 PM), Councilmembers Jane Brunner, Ignacio De La Fuente, Pat Kernighan, and Jean Quan will present an alternative proposal (PDF) to the Mayor’s budget, one that does not stop paying into the internal service funds and also does not rely on $6 million worth of debt refinancing that the Mayor had proposed. Here are the highlights:

• Library: Do not accept proposed branch pairing, instead, keep all libraries open 5 days/week, but reduce book budget by 10% and eliminate General Fund contribution to Second Start Adult Literacy Program.
• Public Works: Rescue from proposed cuts 4 tree maintenance staff and 8 park maintenance staff who pick up trash. Instead, get rid of 100 vehicles.
• Police: Do not cut rangers (who patrol the parks) as proposed. Elminate take-home vehicles for OPD and ground police helicopter.
• Fire: Save $6.4 million through employee concessions.
• Parking: Extend meter hours to 8 PM. Increase parking rate by $0.25 per hour. Increase parking rates for peak meter hours downtown only, not including Chinatown or Jack London Square.
• Mayor: Eliminate $800k out of exempt positions budget, and eliminate Pay-Go for current year.
• City Council: 20% reduction of budget, including elimination of Pay-Go for current year.
• Voluntary 5% pay cut for elected officials.
• Reduce supplies across all agencies by 20%, saving $1.3 million.
• Renegotiate outstanding contracts for 5-10% reduction, saving $0.5 million
• Reduce subsidies to Zoo, Chabot Space & Science Center, Cypress Mandela Training Center, Oakland Asian Cultural Center, etc. by 10%. Reduce subsidy to School of the Art by 50%.
• Raise $9 million with entertainment fee: 10% surcharge on all tickets at Oakland Coliseum and Oracle Arena.

That’s not everything, of course. You can read all their suggested changes here (PDF), along with the amount of money each item will cost or save.

At last week’s budget meeting, District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks suggested that it would be helpful, in determining how we should balance the budget, for the Council to step back and think about what the core functions of the City are. That is, go through each department, item by item, and decide what are the absolutely fundamental services the City is expected to provide.

Council President Jane Brunner had each Councilmember go around and list what they see as core functions, which wasn’t, well, terribly enlightening, because the discussion was so general, but for what it’s worth, here’s how that went. District 4 Councilmember Jean Quan listed libraries, recreation, and senior programs as the City’s core services, and noted that it’s important to look cumulatively at how residents will be impacted, not just by our cuts, but by those at the State level as well. She stressed that the City has a responsibility to look after the most vulnerable members of the community, particularly seniors, who will be particularly hard-hit by the State budget. She said she is not willing to eliminate the rangers, who patrol the City’s parks, from the police department.

District 5 Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente said that while public safety is the most important function the City provides, every department needs to share the pain, and he’s not prepared to shut down libraries to protect the police department from suffering any cuts. In order of importance, he listed police and fire as number one, followed by libraries, then recreation and senior centers, then maintaining streets and sidewalks and generally keeping the city clean, and called everything else “secondary.” District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan agreed, noting that she views recreation centers and libraries as part of providing public safety, and adding that she was uncomfortable with neglecting infrastructure maintenance to the point that it costs us more down the road in terms of repair. She also said that while some argue we shouldn’t spend money supporting cultural institutions, City money spent on cultural activities often leverages large outside sums.

District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel agreed that police and fire are core services, but said that that doesn’t necessarily mean everything in the police or fire departments are uncuttable, using the police helicopter as an example. She said City owned buildings were as important as streets and sidewalks in terms of maintenance, and disagreed with a suggestion put forth during public comment that the adult literacy program is not a core part of the library’s functions. Later, she added that anything focusing on environmental compliance and sustainable development should be considered core, because those departments keep us “future oriented” and on the “leading edge.” Okay.

Jane Brunner said that when identifying what’s core and what isn’t, it’s important to look at the critical functions of each department in terms of how they impact service delivery. Using the fire department as an example, she said she viewed the critical service as response to fire and medical calls, but noted that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s critical to have five people on a truck responding to a medical call. She added that senior centers and feeding the homeless are critical functions of the human services department, and that she, too, views recreation centers as part of public safety.

Desley Brooks said she was also not willing to cut the rangers, and felt it was essential to retain the neighborhood service coordinators. She stressed that any cuts need to be thoughtful, and noted that she would not be amenable to cutting the gang unit in the police department. At-large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan preferred to address the question by looking at what isn’t core, asking how much police time gets spent responding to false alarms from home security systems. (This issue (PDF) was recently discussed by the Council’s Finance and Management Committee.) She agreed with Desley Brooks about the importance of the neighborhood services coordinators, saying they leverage a large number of volunteer hours from the community. She said the number of police officers we require for special events seems excessive, and should be reduced, and that any efforts around business and job attraction is a core function. She added that the Council should be careful not to cut any revenue generating positions.

So saying that police, fire, libraries, and parks are essential city services is kind of a no-brainer, and in that sense, the forty-five minutes the Council spent repeating it was somewhat of a waste of time. I mean, it’s not like anyone was going to be like “I think having lots of bureaucrats in City Hall is a core service.” So in hopes of making the exercise more productive, each Councilmember was assigned specific departments to look at in more detail, taking time to examine every function within that department through the lens of whether or not it was, in fact, an essential service.

I think this is a really good way to look at the budget. Realizing that even if the economy improves over the next two years, the City of Oakland is not going to be flush with extra cash any time in the forseeable future, it’s important that we identify what is absolutely necessary to provide, rather than simply making cuts willy-nilly.

I think it would be a good exercise for my readers as well. What do you view as the core functions of the City? What do you see as expendable? I’m not talking about employee pay – yes, compensation must be, and will be cut, but beyond that, we still don’t have enough money to do everything we want to do. So what programs are absolutely vital to your experience of living somewhere, and what programs are simply nice to have when we can afford them?

To get a sense of what functions are contained within different departments, I’ve posted the Mayor’s proposed budget, broken up by department, below. (All files are PDF.) Obviously, most people will not have time to sit and read through all of them. But I encourage everybody to pick just one and take some time to look at it. Examining what we spend money on, what brings money in, how staffing and budgets have changed over the recent years – it’s a good learning experience. I look forward to reading your comments.

• Mayor
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