Oakland City Council meeting parking video - city staff clowns around

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Yesterday I blogged on how the Oakland City Council got its ass chewed out by angry Oakland business owners and residents Tuesday night over the new parking enforcement process, especially the $55 tickets and the 8 PM daily end time. I promised a video; here is the first of a set of them:



It features Grand Lake Theater owner Alan Michaan explaining that he wants the Oakland City Council to "rescind (the parking plan) or (be) recall(ed)" and Chinatown Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Carl Chan explaining that his well-organized group (which will be more of the focus of my second video), has no such intentions.

The video at nine minutes long also features the angry rant of Oakland retailer Steve Salazar, who accuses the City of Oakland of "predatory parking ticket" practices. But I want you to notice the African American gentleman in the background as Steve is talking to the council.

For some reason that man decided to clown and show the inside of his coat. Why and who he is I do not know, as I didn't pay attention to him at the time. But I can tell you that he's an Oakland City staffer and his antics demonstrate how little the City's staff cares about the feelings of the City's people.

It's also a lesson in what not to do before the cameras. He was better off being still and just listening.

But I digress.

After Steve's rant I also talked to Oakland commercial real estate broker Barbara Kami, who explained that she wished the Oakland Businesses were as well organized as the Oakland Chinatown businesses, a direct slap at the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, which had only one staff representative there and no - I repeat zero - organized membership effort.

Given how active Alan Michaan has been in this effort, perhaps the Oakland Chamber of Commerce should give him a leadership role in the organization.

Barbara's right. The Oakland business community, which is being negatively impacted by the plan, was all but invisible, and we have to ask just what the Chamber's up to. But that's a question for another blog post. The other problem is that City of Oakland's staff in the city finance and administration offices has to identify $900,000 in money that in reality doesn't exist.

The motion presented Tuesday night by Councilmembers Pat Kernighan (District Two - Elmhurst / Glen View) , Jane Brunner (District One - North Oakland), and Jean Quan (District Four - Montclair), was for the roll back of parking enforcement hours from 8 PM to 6 PM and for the following actions to be implemented:

1) Add 250 metered stalls citywide to bring in $200,000
2) Create a new program to enforce against illegal use of handicap parking placards, to bring in $150,000
3) Open the Pacific Renaissance Garage for nighttime use to earn $80,000
4) Redirect a portion of revenue from parking garage augmentation to the general fund at $100,000
5) Sell ad space at the back of parking payment receipts at $30,000

I have to say the last idea is totally morbid. How would you like a parking payment receipt with an add for a massage on the back of it? I mean that could happen under this idea, you know?

Councilmember Desley Brooks (District 6 Central East Oakland) made an excellent point when she asked about the cost of implementing these mesures, which was not known, but one guess a City staffer offered was that the 250 metered stalls alone cost $8,000 each to purchase.

Each.

So, the City of Oakland would spend $2 million to collect just $200,000 from those meters.

That's just plain stupid.

Overall, the motion is - and I don't mean this personally - not a good idea. Folks, the bottom line is there's not $900,000 out there to get. And as much as I may think Oakland City Administrator Dan Lindheim's not at the level of a Robert Bobb, he at least had the guts to say so Tuesday night, but he hedged and said "maybe $200,000".

I'll go a step further than that, and say the Oakland City Council should just cut $900,000 in services to offset the revenue loss. What does gall me is this:

The Oakland City Council doesn't listen

The Oakland City Council doesn't listen to the market even as its talking to the group. Councilmember Brooks wants to have a parking needs study done to determine how we should address this problem of enforcement and parking need.

Look, the people of Oakland have emailed, called, and talked to the City Council - they are the market. They're telling the Council they want free parking in commercial areas on certain days, affordable tickets, and enforcement hours that stop at 6 PM. That's it.

They're also telling the Council that they don't want the city's budget problems balanced on their backs. So I say, cut the budget. Oh, and what about Councilmember Jean Quan's little attempt to dig at Oakland Auditor Courtney Ruby's budget? That was a funny one.

Tuesday night, Councilmember Quan blurted out an idea where the City should take the $410,000 of whistle-blower money that was allocated to Ruby's office and has remained unused, and also said that since its a two-year allocation adding up to just over $800,000, it should be used.

I laughed, and Councilmember Brunner, who was in the Presidents chair leading the Council at the time, quickly changed the subject thus basically saving Quan from looking real, real bad.

Now, it's a rumor that Ruby's considering running for Mayor of Oakland, and we know Quan's had a series of exploratory meetings - just a way of getting her face out there - on what Oaklanders want from their mayor, so I think Quan's shooting across Ruby's bow here. It came off to many in the room as if she was picking on Ruby.

But messing with whistle-blower money or even thinking of it, was a bad move on Quan's part. The money's untouched as of this writing; in two weeks, we'll see what Oakland's City staff comes up with, and let's hope that they can avoid clowning before the cameras.