City council decision on Flock Safety overshadows a potentially even more impactful vote
After 3 hours of public comment on Flock Safety license plate cameras, the Oakland City Council quietly passed a major change to allow controversial votes during daytime work hours.
Oakland City Council meetings are often a flurry of emotionally intense public comment on a packed agenda. Oftentimes the main event that captures everyone’s attention, like last night’s vote on the Flock Safety contract, obscures the secondary agenda items that are of equal or possibly even greater importance — with far-reaching impacts on how the city is run.
Last night, the council voted 5-to-3 to change its rules of procedure to allow controversial decisions and votes to be made during daytime work hours when it is more difficult for most working people to attend meetings.1
The rules change came after the contentious Flock Safety vote.
The main event — and the media hype
On the Flock Safety contract, the council endured nearly three hours of being harangued by 145 public commenters. The public comments ran the gamut from full-throated support of the cameras to hardened opposition to them, in roughly equal measure.2
In the days leading up to the event, the mainline media took a decidedly anti-Flock stance, uncritically publishing false or misleading claims promoted by opponents of the cameras. One oft-repeated falsehood was that the council “bypassed standard legislative processes,” and violated its own rules of procedure in bringing the item to a full council vote after the four members of the council Public Safety Committee deadlocked 2-to-2 on whether to advance the item.3
In fact, the council’s Rules and Legislation Committee, per Rule 5.4.d of the city council’s Rules of Procedure has the authority to advance deadlocked committee items to the full council agenda for a vote, which it did for the full council’s December 16 meeting.4
Another media outlet inaccurately refuted “supporters of the Flock contract [who] attribute recent declines in certain types of crime in Oakland to the hundreds of cameras affixed to poles in the city” by claiming that “the link between Flock cameras and crime rates is generally inconclusive.”5
As evidence, that outlet linked to a 2011 study conducted in Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. But the media outlet’s claim that the link is “inconclusive” is the opposite of what the study actually concluded. The study itself states:
“Findings indicate that in places where cameras were sufficiently concentrated and routinely monitored by trained staff, the impact on crime was significant and cost-beneficial, with no evidence of crime displacement.”6
— from Nancy LaVinge, et al. “Evaluating the Use of Public Surveillance Cameras for Crime Control and Prevention.”
Furthermore, the city’s own far more recent data, as shown in the council Public Safety Committee’s own report dated October 28, stated that carjacking robberies have been one of the main priorities of the Police Department, and one of the specific crimes Flock cameras were brought in to address. The report then cites the city’s statistics that in Oakland in 2023 year-to-date there were 568 carjacking robberies, whereas in 2025 year-to-date there have been 192 carjacking robberies, a 66% decrease.7
The media outlet’s claim that the value of cameras is “inconclusive,” while at the same time dismissing the source of the data (the city of Oakland) as unreliable, appears to attempt to create a condition for approval that would then be impossible for the council to resolve — except for commissioning a long, arduous, expensive “independent analysis” which likely could then get lost in a years-long political proxy debate. As Oakland Report has previously reported, that’s essentially what happened with an Oakland police staffing study over the course of the past several years.8
The city council ultimately voted to approve the contract on a 7-to-1 vote, with Council member Fife dissenting.
See this related article:
The buried lede — moving controversial votes to daytime
By the time the rules change item came up for discussion, the meeting had been going for over six hours straight, and the strain on the council members was beginning to show.
Council member Fife spoke against the rules change to move the meetings to the daytime.
She argued that moving the consequential council votes to the daytime is disenfranchising to the public (Fife used the term “disrespectful”), and an apparent effort to curtail the public’s ability to engage in the discussion. Fife also claimed that the move will skew the public comments to people who have the privilege of schedule availability during workday hours.
But she muddied her own message by expressing her frustration that council members disrespect her personally and don’t give her coveted committee assignments. It’s unclear the basis or purpose of these additional comments, but it may have weakened her influence on the council vote later in the session.
Video Clip 1: Council member Carroll Fife expresses her opposition to the rules change and her frustration with her council colleagues over committee assignments.
Council president Kevin Jenkins, apparently the main proponent of the move to daytime votes, defended his position by reading from a prepared list of all the blue-collar jobs he held when he was younger, working evening and split shifts, then arguing that there is no “magical time” for public engagement.
In responding to Fife’s complaints about committee assignments, he stated a desire to “spread the love” for committee assignments that come with paid stipends.
Video clip 2: Council president Kevin Jenkins expresses his support for the rules change by listing the working-class jobs he worked when younger, and reveals his desire to “spread the love” for committee assignments that come with paid stipends.
Of course, people do work at all different times and hours of the day and night. This is America, the home of hustle, and the struggle is real. But there is no question that a huge number of Oaklanders work during standard daytime work hours.
Many Oaklanders go outside of Oakland to earn a living, and aren’t even in town during the standard work day. Unlike many other large cities whose populations increase during daytime work hours due to an influx of commuters, Oakland experiences a slight decrease in its population during the daytime. This indicates that more residents leave Oakland for work (or are not in the workforce) during the daytime than the number of non-resident workers who commute into the city.91011
Council member Noel Gallo went old-school by noting that the current process to hold votes in the evening was developed over many years, and that the council has long affirmed that holding the meetings in the evening increases public engagement.
This also begs the question: why did the council members take the job if the second-shift working hours — and the extensive public comments — were objectionable? It was clearly a condition of the job, and one that is in the best interests of public engagement in the democratic process.
Video clip 3: Council member Noel Gallo expresses frustration with committee assignments, and notes that the council has long affirmed that holding the meetings in the evening increases public engagement.
Another notable moment was when council member Ken Houston defended mayor Barbara Lee’s refusal to cast the tie-breaking vote on the matter earlier this month.12
Houston said that the mayor doesn’t need to be the tie-breaker — one of the few jobs of substance the position requires — and if the council “does its job,” then the mayor should never have to cast a tie-breaking vote.
Houston added that while he previously opposed the proposal to move controversial votes to the daytime hours, he was now changing his vote in order to break the council’s deadlock and relieve the mayor from being called upon to cast the decisive, tie-breaking vote.13
Video clip 4: Council member Ken Houston explains that he is changing his vote from opposition to support of the rules change in order to spare the mayor from having to cast a tie-breaking vote to decide the matter.
The council approved the rules change on a 5-to-3 vote with council members Fife, Gallo and Charlene Wang dissenting.
To working Oaklanders — the next time a controversial council vote is on deck and you want to participate in the debate, check your PTO balance.
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City of Oakland. “Concurrent Meeting of the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency and the City Council.” Adopt A Resolution Amending And Restating The Council’s Rules Of Procedure In Their Entirety In Order To (1) Assure Council Meetings Run In And Orderly And Efficient Manner; (2) Allow For Non-Consent Items To Be Heard Earlier In The Meeting; (3) Create An Additional Presiding Officer Position To Serve As Presiding Officer In The Absence Of The Council President; And (4) Make NonSubstantive Technical Edits. Dec. 16, 2025, agenda item #8. https://oakland.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7655272&GUID=33849288-DDAB-42F6-BF49-E2ABD99C1260&Options=&Search=
DeBenedetti, Katie. “Oakland’s License Plate Camera Contract Is Back Up for a Vote. Critics Are Crying Foul.” KQED, Dec. 13, 2025. https://www.kqed.org/news/12066924/oaklands-license-plate-camera-contract-is-back-up-for-a-vote-critics-are-crying-foul
Reinhart, Sean S. “Agenda watch: Flock Safety cameras are back on the Oakland city council agenda.” Oakland Report, Dec. 15, 2025. https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/flock-safety-cameras-are-back-on
Orenstein, Natalie. “The Flock surveillance camera debate isn’t dead: City Council will vote.” Oaklandside, Dec. 12, 2025. https://oaklandside.org/2025/12/12/flock-license-plate-readers-oakland-city-council/
LaVinge, Nancy et al. “Evaluating the Use of Public Surveillance Cameras for Crime Control and Prevention.” ResearchGate, September 2011. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280089845_Evaluating_the_Use_of_Public_Surveillance_Cameras_for_Crime_Control_and_Prevention
Oakland City Council. “Concurrent Meeting of the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency and the City Council.” Meeting video, Dec. 16, 2025 (6:18:20 - 6:52:35) https://oakland.granicus.com/player/clip/7183?meta_id=626805
City of Oakland. “Public Safety Committee agenda report.” OPD Community Safety Camera System and Flock contract. Oct. 28, 2025. http://oakland.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=15025526&GUID=2D623941-4C2B-4A29-A66D-CA1C00933A6E
Gardner, Tim. “Oakland is withholding a 2024 police staffing study that cost residents $310,000.” Oakland Report, Apr. 9, 2025. https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/oakland-is-withholding-a-2024-a-police
City of Oakland. “West Oakland Specific Plan –Draft EIR.” Chapter 4.8 — Population, Housing and Employment. https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/planning-amp-building/documents/sp/neighborhood-plans/wosp/eir/wosp-eir-draft-chapter-4.8-population-housing-and-employement.pdf
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Office of Policy and Research. “Comprehensive Housing Market Analysis— Oakland-Hayward-Berkeley, California.” January 1, 2025. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/pdf/OaklandHaywardBerkeleyCA-CHMA-25.pdf
Proximity One. City, County & State Daytime Population. Accessed Dec. 17, 2025. https://proximityone.com/daytime_population.htm
Reinhart, Sean S. “Dialed out: Mayor Barbara Lee refuses to cast a tie-breaking vote.”
Oakland Report, Dec. 15, 2025. https://www.oaklandreport.org/i/180748397/dialed-out-mayor-barbara-lee-refuses-to-cast-a-tie-breaking-vote
On November 4, the council, with Gallo absent and Jenkins “excused” on all votes, failed to achieve a majority vote on any of 4 separate iterations of the rules change resolution: City Council Meeting Minutes, Nov. 4, 2025, agenda item # 9, p. 19. https://oakland.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=1345973&GUID=6114CFBB-ED05-45E4-A51B-16F9A646DEEF