Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Barnett Hall, Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church
Attendance: 18, including City reps (3)
Next Meeting: Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Questions: david@grandlakeneighbors.org

Home Match – Rachael Matthews

• Home Match is a service of the Front Porch Foundation. Home Match connects people with a spare room or ADU with those looking for an affordable space to live. They thoroughly screen all participants. They create profiles outlining the participants’ preferences, interests and living habits. They make personal introductions over time to give everyone the opportunity to make informed decisions about sharing their living space. Once there is a match, they facilitate the Living Together Agreement and offer tips on room readiness.
• The provider has the option to request up to 10 hours a week of help with tasks in exchange for reduced rent. Tasks can include anything from grocery shopping to household chores.
• Home Match provides ongoing support. They can help address any issues creating a strain on the shared housing relationship. And they can support transition to a new housing situation when a match comes to an end.
• The service is free to participants, both providers and homemates.
• Home Match, 3756 Grand Ave., Suite 405, Oakland, 510-350-4367, Home Match Website Email: HomeMatchAlameda@frontporch.net

Privacy Advisory Commission – Brian Hofer

• The Privacy Advisory Commission provides advice to the City of Oakland on best practices to protect Oaklanders’ privacy rights in connection with the City’s use of surveillance equipment and other technology that collects or stores our data. Brian is the chair of the Privacy Advisory Commission.
• The Privacy Advisory Commission was established in 2016. It focuses on security cameras, license plate readers and illegal dumping cameras.
• Oakland is one of five California cities in a trial program for speed cameras. The purpose of these cameras is to reduce the number of accidents caused by excessive speed.
• The State of California agreed to loan Oakland funds to purchase Flock license plate readers. This spring the State took over this project, and installation and management has been transferred to CHP. Brian’s best guess is that the Flock installation will be complete in nine months. You can see the locations for the Flock cameras (Attachment A on pages 21 – 34. Note: The first five pages are locations at freeway on and off ramps. The last nine pages are locations on city streets.)
• The Privacy Commission recommends data retention limits and access requirements to the City Council. Generally speaking, there is a 30-day retention limit for camera data. And officers must have an active case number to search the data. They can’t go fishing without cause.
• At previous meetings we have heard that OPD does not have access to some of the camera systems that nearby policy departments regularly use. The explanation we had heard was that OPD did not have proper authorization to view these camera systems. Brian disagreed with this. His understanding is that OPD did not have the software and/or hardware necessary to view these systems. He believes that OPD has had the proper authorization for quite some time.
• The next meeting of the Privacy Advisory Commission is August 1, 2024.

Council District 1 – Keara O’Doherty

• The City Council has been working hard on the budget for the last few weeks. To close the $177 million deficit, vacant positions will be frozen. The police force will drop to 678 sworn officers. The three police academies for the fiscal year are still in the budget. If the sale of the Coliseum is not finalized by September 1, there will be further cuts, for example bringing the sworn officer count down to 600.
• OaklandReport.org published figures about City of Oakland salaries compared to three other California cities. The report showed that city employee salaries had increased faster in the last 10 years than the other cities. And Oakland salary increases were 2.5 times the rate of inflation. Based on her experience as a city employee, Keara was quite surprised by this analysis. She would like to see source data to analyze how the conclusions were reached. She also would be interested in comparative data for more Bay Area cities (San Francisco was the only Bay Area city in the comparison.)

Council District 2 – Debra Israel

• Officer Aranda is no longer our CRO. Our new CRO is Edvin Mendez, and our new CRO Sergeant is Josiah Ladd.
• Planning for the next budget cycle will begin in September. This will give the council lots of time to address the structural budget deficit. There will be a complete review of all city departments to find ways to make the city work more efficiently.
• We were all pleased last year to learn that the Walker lot cameras were finally operational. Turns out that was a pilot program, and the pilot program has ended. The cameras have been turned off. The Parking Department will evaluate the pilot and decide how to proceed in the future. Debra did not know the exact timeline for the evaluation.
• The parking lot under 580 was pressure washed and cleaned. It looks great!
• The Grand Avenue Art Walk was a big success.
• Several attendees asked about enforcement of rules that do not allow parking on sidewalks on narrow streets. There seems to have been some miscommunications about the policy, the scope of the enforcement, and the process for getting exemptions for very narrow streets where parking with all 4 wheels on the pavement would block the street. Debra will contact Michael Ford and attempt to get this straightened out.
• There was a brief discussion of the recall election for the Mayor and District Attorney, and the fact that Councilmembers Bas and Kalb are running for offices outside the City of Oakland. Debra said that her understanding is the both recalls will be on the November ballot. If the mayoral recall succeeds, the details of whether and when there would be a special election, and who would fill in as Mayor in the meantime, is still not 100% clear. More info to come later.