FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, June 30, 2022
Contact: Tiffany Kang, tkang@oaklandca.gov
Oakland Council President Bas Unites City Council to Unanimously Pass Balanced Budget that Invests in Oaklanders’ Critical Needs
OAKLAND, CA – At today’s Special Meeting of the Oakland City Council, Council unanimously adopted mid-cycle budget amendments for FY 2022-2023 proposed by Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas and her budget team of Councilmembers Carroll Fife, Noel Gallo and Dan Kalb. Their proposal reflects the advocacy and priorities of all eight Councilmembers, and thousands of Oakland residents and community organizations. The final vote was 7 ayes and 1 Councilmember (Thao) excused.
Today’s budget builds on the two-year budget, adopted last year, by continuing to shift Oakland’s investments toward our flatland communities disproportionately impacted by historic disinvestment and COVID, and to expand our public safety infrastructure to include more violence prevention and alternative crisis response programs to address non-violent issues and low-level crime, with the goal of enabling the Oakland Police Department to more effectively focus on responding to and solving serious and violent crime.
See CP Bas’ budget memo here and the Council Budget Team’s amendments to the Mayor’s proposed mid-cycle budget here. The final, approved amendments will be available shortly. Additional budget items will be discussed on July 11th at 1:30pm.
“This budget keeps Oakland focused on our core goals — housing people, providing economic opportunities, creating safer neighborhoods, cleaning our streets and parks, programming our libraries and rec centers, and providing quality services by our valued city workers,” said Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas.
With this budget, which includes eight new Human Resources staff proposed by Mayor Schaaf as well as funding for wage increases proposed by CP Bas, the Council hopes to fill hundreds of vacant staff positions to better serve Oaklanders.
Highlights of the Council’s budget include:
Additional $750,000 for legal services for low-income renters, in addition to $1M already in the proposed budget
$1.1M to fully fund the 66th Ave. Safe RV Parking Site for the unhoused community
$1.25M for job readiness programs, targeted grants to enhance job readiness for Oakland residents who have been impacted by the War on Drugs
$350,000 for a youth-centered planning process to develop a robust, full-service Career Technical Education (CTE) Hub in Oakland for transitional aged youth (TAY)
Creating a reserve fund for the City’s workers to support COLAs and new union contracts
Several grants to support violence prevention and homelessness services
$180,000 in matching funds for a potential state grant for Oakland’s gun buyback program
Deepening Our Investment in AAPI Community Wellness & Safety
CP Bas’ budget allocations in District 2 address urgent needs for public safety, small business support, parks improvements, and community programming in Oakland’s largest AAPI communities of Little Saigon / Clinton and Chinatown.
In Little Saigon, we allocated:
$110,500 to enhance safety and small business supports to address unprecedented levels of crime in Little Saigon, including reinstating $62,500 for a Business Improvement District (first allocated by CP Bas in the FY 2019-21 city budget), establishing a temporary and longer-term OPD sub-station in the neighborhood, identifying Vietnamese-speaking officers to supplement the efforts of OPD’s Asian Liaison Officer, and increasing access, safety, and programming at Clinton Park.
See CP Bas’ recent statement on actions to improve conditions in Little Saigon.
In Chinatown, we allocated:
$100,000 to enhance the recently renamed Wilma Chan Park (formerly Madison Park), including to expand city-supported community programs and activities at the Park.
$35,000 for a critical leaking roof repair at the Chinese Garden facility, operated by Family Bridges and providing child care and senior services to the community.
About Council President and District 2 Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas
Nikki Fortunato Bas is President of the Oakland City Council and represents District 2, one of the most diverse districts in the city. Since taking office in 2019, she has championed community-centered policies and budgeting. She led the passage of the strongest COVID-19 eviction moratorium in the State of California and a COVID-19 grocery worker hazard pay $5 wage bonus covering 2,000 workers in Oakland’s largest grocery stores. She created a fund for community land trusts to prevent displacement and create permanently affordable, community-owned housing, introduced a progressive corporate tax which will be on the ballot in 2022, and led a task force to reimagine public safety in Oakland. She led a budget team that passed a biennial budget which invests millions in violence prevention and alternative crisis response. She also serves on the National League of Cities’ inaugural Reimagining Public Safety Task Force. For two decades prior to being elected in 2018, Bas pushed for worker, environmental, gender and racial justice. She organized immigrant garment workers to win their wages back in Oakland and San Francisco Chinatowns, and she worked in coalitions to raise Oakland's minimum wage with paid sick leave, create living wage jobs on the Oakland Army Base redevelopment project, and reduce diesel truck pollution at the Port of Oakland. Learn more at oaklandca.gov/officials/nikki-fortunato-bas.