Oakland Report Radar: May 26th, 2025

Memorial Day edition: upcoming meetings, public safety budget, and other Oakland news in brief.

Oakland will try to tackle its $129 million/year deficit by passing a two-year budget this year. See below for some information on meetings and documents.

MEETINGS

1) District budget meetings: Each Councilmember will be having meetings in the community to discuss the budget. District 2+At-Large, 3, 4 and 5 are coming up. Here is the slide deck.

2) City Council budget meeting: City Council will start discussing the budget this Wednesday May 28th at 9am. See here for the initial budget report and agenda.

3) Public Safety Committee: On Tuesday May 27th at 6pm, this committee of the City Council will hear reports about OPD's Shotspotter and an update on MACRO.

BUDGET BASICS - PUBLIC SAFETY

The proposed budget will affect the following:

1) Police staffing and overtime: 678 police officers and three police academies (this is less than the 700 officer requirement for Measure NN funds*). Police overtime will be decreased by 20%. There will be an overall increase in budgeted funds every year.

2) Fire stations: rotating brownouts of 2 fire stations.

3) Department of Violence Prevention: Increase in budget by $3 million per year, with increase in 2 staffing positions. Most of the increases come from grants and restricted funds (such as Measure NN) with decreased use of General Funds.

OTHER NEWS

1) "Culture of enforcement" - District 4 Councilmember Ramachandran penned an editorial encouraging parking and traffic enforcement.

2) Pursuit policy redux - OPD Chief Mitchell presented revisions to the pursuit policy at the 5/22 meeting of the police commission. He recommended removing the 50 mph restriction and requiring officers to obtain supervisor approval after initiating a chase. Recent news coverage was not reflective of the actual meeting, and did not report on the 45 comments and over 12 public speakers who were in favor of the Chief's changes. The article focused on statements from the two activists present who were the only two speakers against changing the policy. The policy will be voted on by the Police Commission at a later date.

3) Fire stations fully opened - all fire stations are completely open ahead of wildfire season. However, the budget will have a rotating brownout of two of them starting in July.

4) Homeless encampment cleared - the city cleared out the 12th street homeless encampment this past week transitioning 70 people into interim housing.

*Measure NN includes a clause that if the city declares “extreme financial necessity” then it does not have to meet the staffing requirement.

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Tags: Budget, Public Safety, Police, Radar

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