Bid to divert Oakland funds renewed
Councilwoman Brooks seeks public money for private job training centers
An Oakland city councilwoman has renewed her effort to give millions of dollars in public funds to several private organizations — a controversial proposal that has drawn a rebuke from a citizen oversight committee and troubled the city’s legal counsel.
The plan by Councilwoman Desley Brooks would benefit a group of community organizations that provide vocational training to Oakland residents. City officials put an initial version of the proposal on hold after The Chronicle first reported on it. A council committee will vote Tuesday on a new version.
The proposal seeks to take funds from a range of sources, including Measure KK, a $600 million infrastructure and affordable housing bond that Oakland voters passed in 2016. Measure KK led to the largest one-time property tax increase in recent city history.
Brooks wants the public funds divvied up among unspecified “job training centers” along with three named organizations: the Cypress Mandela Training Center, the Men of Valor Academy and the Laborers’ Community Training Foundation.
The latter is operated by a politically active construction union, Laborers’ Local 304, and located about 20 miles east of Oakland in San Ramon. According to the group’s Facebook page, its labor relations representative is Fernando Campos, who is one of the members of the Measure KK oversight com-
mittee that’s charged with reviewing bond expenditures.
That oversight committee, however, has yet to convene. Campos did not immediately return a request for comment on how he would handle the potential conflict of interest.
Brooks’ proposal also includes a section guaranteeing that the public funds would not be available to other groups in the city by waiving a competitive bidding requirement on the grounds that “training Oakland’s workforce ... is in the best interest of the city and is achieved by providing funding to Cypress Mandela Training Program, Men of Valor and Laborers’ Community Training Foundation, and the city sponsored job centers.”
A citizen committee that oversees the Oakland budget blasted the proposal. In a February letter to city officials, the group said the suggested expenditures would violate principles of transparency and accountability.
“To dedicate public funds to private organizations for their private purposes and administrative costs impermissibly transfers control over these public funds from the City Council to private bodies that are not accountable to the taxpayers,” the letter from committee Chairman Ed Gerber said. “The use of the money for job training programs, let alone the transfer of funds to private organizations that are not subject to citizen oversight or public audit, is not authorized.
The original legislation was co-sponsored by Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan and Council President Larry Reid. Councilman Noel Gallo introduced the second version with Brooks.
During a scheduling meeting last month, two city attorneys questioned why they hadn’t received a copy of the proposal to review for legal issues. The proposal was omitted from a public agenda ahead of the meeting, which was unintentional, according to the city clerk’s office.
In the latest proposal, the amount of funds given to the organizations would be equivalent to the total of: 5 percent of capital improvement costs, 5 percent of parking revenue and 5 percent of development services revenue. City contractors would also be charged 30 cents extra per hour worked to raise money for the organizations and would be subject to late fees if they do not send checks on time.
From the combined sources, the job-training organizations could receive roughly $10 million a year.
Brooks did not respond to requests for comment. She has planned a rally at City Hall ahead of the Community and Economic Development Committee meeting Tuesday afternoon to gather support for the proposal.
Gallo, the co-sponsor, said the money given to the organizations would be well spent. He said the city would set up some kind of oversight mechanism to ensure the groups are using the funds appropriately.
“The majority of kids coming out of Oakland high schools are not going to universities. They’re on the street, they’re involved in crime,” Gallo said. “At the end of the day, we all have to pay for that.”