Mayor Barbara Lee, speaking this week to Oakland residents and elected leaders in City Council chambers, delivered the annual mayoral State of the City Address, highlighting the city’s accomplishments as well as the challenges Oakland is facing going forward.
Lee began her remarks praising city workers, who picketed outside City Hall before the meeting, and are currently negotiating with the city for a wage increase and ending understaffing that leaves many departments shorthanded.
“We are working very hard (not) just to get a contract, but to get a fair contract,” she said. “I know that our City Council and myself are working constantly toward that end.”
The mayor also praised Councilmember Carroll Fife for her legislation for a 45-day moratorium on data center construction, which passed unanimously at the council meeting Tuesday following Lee’s presentation.
Speaking bluntly, she said, “Oakland continues to be a city on the move, (but) I want to tell you the truth about the state of our city.”
“We have made real progress, and we still face real challenges.”
She said the city has balanced its budget but has a structural deficit, which is decreasing, and must operate within the context of federal funding cuts.
“Too many Oaklanders are unhoused, too many families are struggling with the cost of living, and too many neighborhoods still need basic services that they deserve, and too many people are living in fear,” Mayor Lee said.
“We’re not sweeping these realities under the rug,” she continued. “We are being intentional and transparent about how we must face these challenges, but we will not ignore our progress.”
Substantial progress includes:
• Bringing crime down;
• Building affordable and deeply affordable housing;
• Cleaning the streets and fixing the roads;
• Helping small businesses.
“We are bringing new investment to Oakland,” she said. “We’re making City Hall work better. There’s more to do, but make no mistake, Oakland is on the move.”
Speaking broadly about the city’s public safety initiatives, she said that crime continues to decline. Burglaries fell by 26%, and violent crime fell by 17%.
In recent years, homicides and shootings have fallen by double digits, and gun violence has dropped by more than 50% in the last 33 months.
“These aren’t just statistics: these are lives. These are families. These are people who never made it home,” Mayor Lee said.
She talked about what to expect now that federal court oversight of the Oakland Police Department ended last week after 23 years. “Ending federal oversight does not mean ending accountability; quite the opposite,” she said. “Accountability and civilian oversight must remain our standard. Community trust must be our standard.”
Mayor Lee also emphasized that Oakland remains a city of refuge.
“We do not work with ICE; we do not cooperate with ICE; our police do not cooperate with ICE; we will not be militarized,” she said.
The mayor also emphasized that investing in youth is a top priority of her administration and should be considered a public safety strategy.
“We advocated for almost $2 million to restore the mayor’s youth summer employment program,” she said. “We connected youth with Oakland businesses to develop skills that will support them for years to come, and that’s a big deal.”
To create a police force that better serves and protects Oakland, the city is working toward the goal of reaching 700 sworn police officers, she said. These steps include recruiting from Oakland, holding academies, reinstituting a cadet program, and increasing foot patrols.
The city also is strengthening other programs, including the Department of Violence Prevention and Ceasefire, she said. “We must have this comprehensive public safety strategy, because we must also prevent violence before it happens.”
Continuing, Lee said public safety is connected to unsanitary conditions in city neighborhoods.
“Illegal dumping is unacceptable, and it’s a moral disgrace,” she said. “No child should have to walk past piles of garbage on their way to school; no senior should have to live next to it; no small business should have to clean it up outside its door.”
She said the city is changing the way it fights illegal dumping, securing a $9.2 million investment to develop a new strategy. “We’re not just cleaning it up; we’re working to stop it before it starts. We have the three E’s – Eradication, enforcement, and education,” she said.
Focusing on the continuing crisis of Oakland’s unhoused residents, she said, “We consider housing a basic human right, and homelessness remains one of Okland’s greatest challenges.”
“There are two things we must do: keep people from becoming unsheltered and help people who are unsheltered get back into housing with services that they need,” Lee said.
Since 2024, homelessness in Oakland has fallen by 20%, she said. In the past year prevention programs helped keep 1,000 families in their homes, and over 1,300 affordable homes opened over the past two years.
Addressing community tensions over encampments, she said, “We should never have to choose between compassion for people experiencing homelessness and the health and safety of our neighborhoods.”
“A strong city has to deliver both,” she said. “That’s the work we’re advancing through Oakland’s new homelessness strategic action plan.”
