Bay Area

Council Rejects Measure for Voters to Weigh in on Billion-dollar Tax-Funded Infrastructure Expenditure

In a statement released after the meeting, the East Oakland Stadium Alliance said, “The City Council (has) denied Oakland residents the right to vote on whether to spend nearly $1 billion in public funds on the Howard Terminal project, ignoring the nearly 12,000 residents who signed petitions demanding a vote take place.

Published

3 years ago

July 10, 2022

Oakland Post

Many of the public speakers against the measure were aligned with the building trades construction unions, which have been working hard to pass the development project.

By Ken Epstein

In a meeting this week that dragged on for more than 12 hours, Oakland City Councilmembers decisively turned down a proposal to place a measure on the November ballot to allow voters to weigh in on whether they want over a billion of their tax dollars spent on infrastructure for private luxury development and baseball stadium on public land at the Port of Oakland.

The final vote was 5-2 against the measure, with council member Rebecca Kaplan abstaining.

Voting yes was Councilmember Noel Gallo, the author of the measure. Gallo emphasized that this proposal had not been his idea but was drafted in response a deluge of calls and petitions from local residents, demanding that their voices not be ignored in the city’s rush to give public funds for infrastructure to billionaire developer and A’s team owner John Fisher.

“Your neighbors, my neighbors, are asking us to put this on the ballot,” Gallo said, adding that this is a business deal, and the A’s corporation has been less than transparent about the terms of the deal, whether the A’s will pay any community benefits and how much infrastructure will cost the public.

“As of today, I don’t have a complete picture of what the A’s are asking for and what they are willing to pay,” Gallo said.

Also voting in favor of the resolution was Councilmember Carroll Fife, who represents District 3 where the project would be built.

“I want to know what the City of Oakland is on the hook for,” Fife said.

She said supporters of the stadium project complain about misinformation being spread against the project. “(But) if we’re going to tell the truth, we’re going to have to tell the truth all the way around,” she said.

While it is true the stadium, luxury condominiums and commercial real estate will be privately paid for, “there’s a lot more that has to be funded,” she said, and it will be paid ultimately by taxpayers.

State, federal and other grants are also taxpayer money, much of which could be spent on other projects to benefit the needs of Oakland residents and neighborhoods, she said.

Fife said this issue will be on the November ballot, one way or another. Either the council could place it on the ballot, or voters may consider whether to vote for incumbents who opposed allowing the public to vote on the matter.

“With homelessness, a housing crisis, school closures, and rising crime impacting our city, Oakland voters must be allowed to weigh in before the City’s limited resources are spent on a private stadium and condo development.”

The five councilmembers who opposed the resolution gave a variety of reasons for their “no” vote, though most of them agreed they have heard overwhelmingly from residents who wanted them to vote “yes.”

Councilmember Dan Kalb said, “I’m not prepared to bring this is to a vote of the citizens,” until the details of the final agreement are released. If the deal looks good for Oakland, he said, he will vote in favor of it, but if Oakland’s finances ultimately are not protected, he might support a special election in January for voters to decide if they like the deal.

Councilmember and mayoral candidate Loren Taylor opposed the measure saying it was “confusing” and “stupid,” because it does not contain the details of the proposal.

“For me to be supportive, (the measure) would have to be specific about the deal terms,” Taylor said.

None of details have been released so far and apparently are still being negotiated by city staff and the A’s.

Councilmember and mayoral candidate Sheng Thao said, “I’d like to hear an actual proposal. I’m in the same boat as Councilmember Kalb.”

Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas said, “I am not ready to put this on the ballot. We need to actually have a deal.”

Councilmember Treva Reid said voters in her district are “asking for more details before we ask them to weigh in. I’m going to wait for information.”

Many of the public speakers against the measure were aligned with the building trades construction unions, which have been working hard to pass the development project.

A number of pro-development speakers addressed similar talking points, ending their remarks with the slogan, “This is bigger than baseball!”

Calling for a “no” vote, they argued: a ballot measure would be too costly to administer; details of a proposed deal were too confusing for Oakland residents to understand; and wording of the measure was too vague since it does not contain details of a final proposal.

Public speakers calling for a “yes” vote included Cathy Leonard. “I view this proposal as nothing more than a disguised development deal. Support Oakland residents right to vote.”

Andrea Luna Bocanegra said, “We have been fighting this for over six years,” adding that the development will hurt the companies that utilize the Port, forcing them to go elsewhere.

“It seems like we’ve stepped away from developing East Oakland,” said Stanley Cooper.

In response to the argument that there is no final deal, supporters of the ballot measure responded that the content of the deal is irrelevant. “The question is whether Oakland tax-payers want to use any their tax dollars to pay for infrastructure for a private project. Period.”

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

5 days ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.

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Activism

Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

5 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.

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Alameda County

Oakland Begins Month-Long Closure on Largest Homeless Encampment

At 8 a.m. sharp, city workers began piling up trash and dismantling makeshift homes along the nearly five-block encampment. City crews blocked off streets from 14th Ave to 17th Ave, between E. 12th and International Blvd, due to the Safe Work Zone Ordinance that was passed by the city council in 2022 to protect workers from harassment during cleanings, according to a city spokesperson.

Published

5 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

The City of Oakland began sweeping their largest homeless encampment on E 12th St. Monday morning. Advocates claim that the city has not done its due diligence with providing ample resources or outreach for residents at the encampment. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland began a three-week-long breakdown of the largest homeless encampment in the city on E. 12th Street on Monday morning. Residents and advocates said they are devastated about the displacement of dozens of people.

Jaz Colibri, one of the many advocates at the closure, said the encampment sweeps were “intense and terrifying” to witness. They claimed that several residents, many of them non-English speakers, had not been aware that the sweep was happening that day because of a lack of proper communication and outreach from Oakland.

Colibri added that the city had done a Census “many months ago” and “had not bothered to count people since then”, meaning dozens of individuals have missed out on housing and resources in the last few weeks because the city doesn’t offer outreach in multiple languages.

“Basically, [Oakland] dropped the ball on actually getting to know everybody who lives here and then creating a housing solution that meets everyone’s needs,” Colibri said.

City spokesperson Jean Walsh told the Post that notices of the closure operation were posted in Spanish and Chinese prior to Monday, but did not clarify if outreach was done in those languages as well.

Nearly a dozen Oakland police vehicles, California Highway Patrol officers, and Oakland Public Works staff were gathered along E 12th waiting for residents to pack up their belongings and move away from the area.

Advocates said residents “felt unsafe” due to the hefty law enforcement presence.

One city worker, who was picking up debris near 16th Ave, said, “They’ve known we were coming for a long time now” in reference to resident confusion about the sweeping.

The state doubled down on its requirement to get cities and counties to deal with their homelessness crisis at a press conference Monday afternoon. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office released a “model ordinance” that is intended to provide a starting point that local municipalities can use to build from and adjust in creating their own policies on encampments, if they haven’t done so yet.

Newsom said “No more excuses, time to deliver” after the state has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into solving the issue.

Oakland was awarded a $7.2 million grant from the state in 2024 to close long-standing encampments in the city, including camps at Martin Luther King, Jr. and 23rd Street, and Mosswood Park.

Residents at these encampments were offered wraparound supportive services, temporary shelter, and eventually will be transitioned to permanent supportive housing, according to a city statement from last year.

Residents who accepted housing at these three encampments were moved into newly acquired property, formerly the Extended Stay America Hotel in West Oakland, which will first serve as interim housing for up to 150 individuals and couples in 105 units, and in the coming year, will be converted into 125 units of permanent housing.

Walsh said as of May 2, “32 residents of the recently closed Mosswood Park encampment moved into the Mandela House program” and as of May 12, “41 residents of the East 12th Street encampment have already accepted offers to move to the Mandela House.” The city will provide final numbers of how many accepted and moved into housing after the closure operation is over.