City Outsources Public Planning for Trade Center

Oakland officials propose to give a no-bid contract for $112,000 to a consultant firm with ties to a developer. In return, the business interests, which are involved in world trade centers, will tell the City how various Oakland sites rank for a center and how big a subsidy they want.

C.H. Johnson Consulting, based in Chicago, has helped the World Trade Center Association develop centers in Seoul, Ekaterinburg, Amsterdam, San Marino, Boston and Sao Paulo. A "world trade center" is a collection of offices and demonstration booths, largely helping overseas vendors and U.S. distributors meet and sign wholesale trade deals.

Naturally, consultant Johnson wants more business with the trade association. His mission is to find the most accommodative site and extract the most lucrative public subsidy for a world trade center. Shouldn't the world trade center group hire the consultant to do that? Not in Oakland. Instead, the City proposes to outsource its own planning work to the other side of the table.

C. H. Johnson Works for trade center businessmen, paid by City they are negotiating with

Would the City contract with friends of the Oakland Police Officers Association to prepare the City's strategy for labor contract negotiations with the police? Of course not, but here the City will pay the already-chosen recipients of subsidy to develop public policy.

Johnson Consulting will work with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the big-time real estate operation. The two firms have worked together on previous trade center deals. Together they will tell the City which land to offer and how much public money to provide as a subsidy. But the City is ever vigilant. The staff report for the July 10 meeting of a city council committee proudly notes that the firms will provide "both a written report and power point presentation detailing the recommendations and findings." Oh boy, a PowerPoint file!

The cozy insider partnership is well along. The executive director of the Bay Area World Trade Center and City staffer Deborah Acosta went to Shanghai, China together in September 2006. Since then, Acosta has made the rounds of business associations speaking about the wonderful opportunities to do business with China. (Please do not import farmed fish with toxic pesticides in them.)

Acosta's resumé boasts thirteen years of commercial lending experience at large banks and eight years with the City of Oakland's economic development unit. It would seem that City staff could do the planning and work up financial projections for Oakland.

According to the staff report, mayor Dellums' staff – not the mayor himself, probably chief of staff Daniel Boggan, Jr. – met with the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce about the deal on June 20.

Councilmember Jane Brunner is promoting the giveaway proposal. Here she outsources public planning to favored developers. On the other hand, she recently began pressuring small merchants in Business Improvement Districts to pay half the expense of her proposal to hire "at-risk" youth to be escorts at BART stations.

Wouldn't you like to launch a business by getting a City contract to tell the City what land you need and how much public subsidy you require? Sorry, only favored insiders in the rotten development game need apply.

Brunner and City staff propose to draw the $112,000 from more than a dozen City accounts, including $20,000 from the Central Redevelopment District. The district has a citizen board. They are suppposed to recommend and review uses of Redevelopment Agency money. However, the staff report gives no indication that the City has even told board members of the contract, let alone asked their judgment.

Contrast the council's imminent giveaway to trade center businessmen with its handling of Measure Y tax money. The council broke its promise to provide 802 police in return for these taxes. The council hands out grants to "nonprofit" agencies for activities that are not authorized by any part of Measure Y. We have fewer police today than when Measure Y went into effect more than two and a half years ago.

The world trade center deal is not just a bad joke. While City officials pursue such follies, they do nothing to get the minimum 1,100 officers we need in this city of 400,000 residents. Councilmembers need to spend City funds on police and basic services first, postponing giveaway deals until these needs are met.