4 21-0170 Subject: Lake Merritt Working Group
From: Office Of The City Administrator
Recommendation: Approve A Report And Recommendations From The City Administrator To Continue To Support The Safe And Equitable Use Of Lake Merritt By Providing For An Authorized Street Vending Program On Weekends, Alternative Traffic Control Measures, Develop An Alternative Program To Manage Activities At The Lake Such As A Park Ambassador Program, And Seek An Ongoing Funding Source To Cover The Costs Associated With These Efforts On A Year-Round Basis
There is an excessive amount of trash and litter left at the lake and up and down our streets as a result of the vendors on the weekend. I constantly witness people urinating in our parks and on our streets. Are these vendors charged for the booth? Can they be charged for extra cleaning to come through after the booths are broken down?
The City of Oakland openly admits that it will not enforce the following violations around Lake Merritt: traffic/parking, car burglaries, amplified sound, muggings, illegal drug and alcohol sales, and even sideshows and late-night events at the Sailboat House. The reason given is that these are not violent/serious crimes. Amazingly, the city has just decided to abandon all enforcement, and those living in the area are expected to accept this while being asked to support additional activity around the Lake. Other cities prioritize enforcement of quality -of- life issues, and the benefits it provides for ALL community members. I will oppose this measure until there is enforcement of existing rules/law.
I strongly support the proposals put forth by the Lake Merritt Working Group, particularly restricting vending activity to El Embarcadero, although I would suggest this be enforced daily, not only on weekends. I especially like the idea of having park ambassadors and would encourage you to approve this program all week and evenings. Amplified music, trash, and traffic issues have seriously degraded the quality of life in the neighborhoods around the Lake and these proposals will go a long way to making the parks accessible and enjoyable for everyone.
SAVE LAKE MERRITT! I’ve lived at the lake for nearly 9 years now and the last two years has seen a drastic decline in the quality of life at the lake and the surrounding areas. Every weekend its residents are subjected to amplified noise and traffic; our fire lanes, bicycle lanes and driveways are blocked; and an excessive amount of trash is being left everywhere.
I’m tired of having to clean up the trash on my street every weekend. I’m tired of hearing the sounds of revving engines, squealing tires, and loud music vibrating through my home all day long. I’m tired of phoning Oakland police to report cars blocking my driveway to no avail. I’m tired of the park’s grass being used as a parking lot. I’m tired of feeling trapped in my home or worse, feeling like I need to escape my home every weekend. I’m tired of seeing Oakland’s jewel, a wildlife refuge, being turned into a flea market.
The answer is simple: Oakland needs to ENFORCE THE EXISTING LAWS AND RULES. NO vending, NO amplified music, NO illegal parking. Clean up the trash and graffiti. The lake is no longer a place where families can come and enjoy a picnic. Its use should be safe and equitable for residents and visitors. This is not a place for commercial vending. A place for these vendors already exists at one of many flea markets/swap meets around the bay. The suggestion of finding a place for them around Lake Merritt is ludicrous.
The Lake, its visitors, its wildlife and its residents deserve better than this.
As a resident of East Lake, I support this item, especially the ambassador program, to find equitable solutions to make the lake area accessible to all, and find non-violent ways to resolve conflicts around use. Finding community-centered ways to resolve issues without involving the police is essential to maintaining this public space safe for all Oakland's residents.
As someone who lives within a block of the lake I strongly support this proposal. The park ambassador program is especially impressive, and I appreciate that this proposal supports the neighborhood while still maintaining the lake as a needed multi use community gathering space.
This sounds like a great direction - supporting local vendors and an approach to community safety that is led by community, not led by police. The park ambassador program sounds good, especially if it is ensuring equitable use and access to the park by all Oaklanders (not just those who can afford to live next to it).
I was part of the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club engineering team that restored Lake Merritt's necklace of lights. The entire lake had been abused, maligned, and dismissed, with good cause, it was in truly terrible shape.
In 3 years, with an amazing community response, we restored the lake to its previous splendor. To huge public applause, on even a national scale, we debuted the Necklace on the night the Oakland A's hosted the AllStar game on TV. Even with the fireworks combined with turning on the lake's new lights, it was always a magical and serene place. It was never intended to be anything but a place for family and friends to enjoy the striking and almost pastoral comfort of a picnic on the grass overlooking our remarkable urban jewel, and it has been almost exactly that, place of comfort, peace, and beauty. This most recent influx of unwelcome commercial activity, is effectively discarding all that was built and all that was needed, by Oakland, and accomplished at this urban oasis. It was never meant to be warped into a Coney Island-like boardwalk peddling gee-gaws and corn dogs, whatever.
This is the oldest wildlife refuge in the US. It was commissioned by John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt.
There was never anything but universal applause and welcome for how the lake was restored, because it was done with the entire community's blessing.
It deserves better, than to be turned into some terrible little strip mall.
SAVE LAKE MERRITT.
I support the City continuing to support the safe and equitable use of Lake Merritt, specifically the Park Ambassador Program, which would provide a non-police response system. Lake Merritt is an amazing resource for all Oaklanders, including non-human residents, and there is a way to promote a vibrant community at the Lake while protecting the wildlife preserve. It is absurd for mostly white residents in high-priced lakeside apartments to try and dictate what happens in public space.
I would wholeheartedly support this initiative if I had any reason to think you'd enforce these proposed regs. Enforcing traffic safety, litter (public hygiene), and noise pollution (liveability) regs is not overreach, but it's been conflated with it. When people demonstrate the safety awareness and concern for others of sugared up toddlers, we need a nanny state.
It seems to me there must be an Environmental Impact Report before the Lake Merritt bird sanctuary and wildlife refuge is turned into a flea market. There must be City, County and State Environmental Impacts required in order to repurpose Lake Merritt as proposed. A lot of tax dollars were spent to restore the Lake and create a public recreation area, a bird sanctuary and a wildlife refuge. With the vendors, no matter where located, the park is trashed, the lake is full of trash that flows out to the bay, the residents of the neighborhoods involved are overwhelmed by crowds, noise, parking problems, blocking of ingress and egress, public urination and defecation, etc., etc, all of which is well known to you. I do not see how you can change the status of Lake Merritt without an Environmental Impact Report, and I expect o see one provided before any action is taken. Another area needs to be found to locate the vendors, flea market, dj's and partiers, not Lake Merritt. which is now called NoPoPoPark, no police park. You should be ashamed. There should be NO vending at El Embarcadero, the Library, the Pergola or anywhere around Lake Merritt. There are other city locations that can be provided successfully for this purpose.
The current situation is dangerous, is a significant expense to the City, and damages the park infrastructure. Moving it won't help much.
I say dangerous, because I was nearly hit by cars and motorcycles 4! times last night while riding my bike down Lakeshore to pick up dinner from Rico Rico Taco, a business that pays taxes. With cars parked in the center median, three times a car dodged into the bike lane, where I was riding, nearly hitting me. A fourth time a motorcycle darted out from between two parked cars and nearly hit me. All in two blocks. I also observed 2 people who had set up bars and were selling mixed drinks and shots of liquor.
The vendors take up all the parking, the vendors don't make any effort that I have seen to deal with the trash they generate, leaving it all to the City. Further, news articles from earlier this summer indicated that vendors threatened City workers. That is unacceptable.
The situation grows worse as the weather improves, because the City has abandoned any kind of enforcement. Why would the vendors listen? There are no repercussions. The few parking citations that have been issued have not been paid. There is nothing inequitable about parking in red zones - this is a public safety issue.
Enforcement of existing rules - no vending, no illegal parking, no amplified music - would resolve the situation immediately. This would keep the park open for people to use in the manner it was intended, as a park, not a flea market.
What is the City good for if it can't MAINTAIN ORDER?
Oakland will receive $192 million from the Rescue act, compared against its annual budget of $655 million. Let's use this money to restore order and good governance throughout Oakland, starting with its jewel, Lake Merritt. Enforcement and good management of the Lake will radiate throughout the neighborhoods as residents and visitors learn that inconsiderate and dangerous behavior will not be tolerated.
-Install a semi-permanent barrier in the center lane. It will be inconvenient to residents but reduce sideshows, illegal parking, and overall density.
-Enforce existing ordinances related to amplified music and vending.
-Place toilets and trash containers in locations that are not eyesores.
-As for vending, only if it's well regulated and rules are enforced.
Like my neighbors, I now experience regular PTSD-related cortisol hits, mostly from amplified noise and long-frequency sound waves from sideshows and motorcycles. These sound waves vibrate my entire building. I'm also very distressed by the parking problems, loss of access to emergency response, trash, environmental impacts, public toileting, public drunkenness, and threatening behavior by a guy who drives a blue ATV who drives on the grass and accelerates toward picnickers before veering away at the last minute.
The fireworks last year were terrifying. I love Oakland, but I will leave altogether if order cannot be maintained.
How can we access this report up for approval? The hyperlinks above go nowhere (View Repor,t View Attachment A, View Attachment B, View Attachment C, View Attachment D). Tomorrow the invitation to comment here closes. That's shady.
In General, If the city is unable or unwilling to enforce current Oakland ordinances such as those that address the extreme amplified music and other nuisance noise, illegal vending (unpermitted food and drink vending, cannabis and liquor sales) Illegal parking, dangerous traffic violations (speeding, hot-rodding, sideshows, driving under the influence), and illegal fireworks, then it doesn't much matter what else you propose... does it? New ordinances or rules or alternative measures of any kind will be ignored like all the other rules.
You might consider that the enforcement issues are at the heart of the residents of Lake Merritt opposing the commercial sidewalk vending. Through inaction, the city is saying one comes with the other. It's also inviting the violent crime blanketing the city now. If the city can't address nonviolent crime, it certainly cannot address violent crime.
I support moving the vending over to El Embarcadero as well as the proposal to resume the weekend closures, but I believe that more action and funding is needed, although this would be a good start. The constant barrage of amplified noise, sideshows, and traffic jams along Lakeshore have make weekends a crowded nightmare.
Regulated vending is one thing, but what we need is money in the budget to enforce amplified sound and parking regulations that already exist. It genuinely feels like I'm trapped in my home on weekends with no way to leave and stop the ground-shaking noise from invading my life.
I've been a resident of the Lake area for over 22 years and is been so noisy and dirty with vendors for the last two years! Keep it clean and No noise and less craziness!!!
I've been a resident of the Lakeshore neighborhood for 3 years. I support the City Administrator proposal to resume weekend closures of Westbound Lakeshore and the moving of all vending from the open parkland over to El Embarcadero. I believe much more action is needed, but this is an important start.
The past 2 years has seen a dramatic degradation in the quality of life for residents and an encroachment on ability of visitors to enjoy the lake with families. Weekends, and now several Weekday afternoons, have presented non-stop amplified noise, sideshows, inability for residents to enter or exit their driveways, and the trashing / tearing-up of grassy areas that used to host picnics and BBQ with the arrival of industrial scale Food vendors. Our sidewalks, driveways, and entryways have become toilets. Alcohol and DJ parties are sold and hosted on public land. Illegal parking and traffic-packed street blockage on Lakeshore also regularly prevents emergency vehicle access. Coupled with fireworks during the entire months of June and July the area begins to feel like a war zone and residents like me -- stuck in their own homes among deafening noise -- begin to show signs of PTSD.
Regulated vending away from the park, and resuming Lakeshore weekend closure, is a start, but not enough. We need basic enforcement of amplified sound, alcohol and parking regulations -- as well as extending the proposed street closures to Holidays like July 4, and further into the evenings.
I oppose vending on the Lake, the now tarnished Jewel of Oakland. Lake Merritt is a wildlife reserve, I ask that you have an Environmental Impact Report done before even considering going forth.
If you legalize what has been an extremely bad situation you are essentially condoning not following the rules and ordinances. The Lake used to be for everyone now it for only an elite crowd of people who disrespect the Park and the neighborhood, and, most probably do not even live in Oakland.
Do not confuse gathering votes( from folks who probably aren’t in your district) with choosing the best for Oakland.
Brick and Mortar businesses are suffering and Oakland’s tax base will suffer, which leads to less money to help uplift the quality of all Oaklanders.
Oaklanders paid a lot of taxes to beautify Lake Merritt, don’t squander that away.
Ask yourselves why you are even considering sanctifying the noisy, dirty and non income producing vending?
Business owners pay a lot in taxes, insurance, salaries etc. Help them continue to exist or lose them to another better run City!
I echo all that has been said. Lake Merritt is a bird sanctuary and should be treated as one. Please enforce all the laws and remove this activity at the lake. It needs time to heal.
There is an excessive amount of trash and litter left at the lake and up and down our streets as a result of the vendors on the weekend. I constantly witness people urinating in our parks and on our streets. Are these vendors charged for the booth? Can they be charged for extra cleaning to come through after the booths are broken down?
The City of Oakland openly admits that it will not enforce the following violations around Lake Merritt: traffic/parking, car burglaries, amplified sound, muggings, illegal drug and alcohol sales, and even sideshows and late-night events at the Sailboat House. The reason given is that these are not violent/serious crimes. Amazingly, the city has just decided to abandon all enforcement, and those living in the area are expected to accept this while being asked to support additional activity around the Lake. Other cities prioritize enforcement of quality -of- life issues, and the benefits it provides for ALL community members. I will oppose this measure until there is enforcement of existing rules/law.
I strongly support the proposals put forth by the Lake Merritt Working Group, particularly restricting vending activity to El Embarcadero, although I would suggest this be enforced daily, not only on weekends. I especially like the idea of having park ambassadors and would encourage you to approve this program all week and evenings. Amplified music, trash, and traffic issues have seriously degraded the quality of life in the neighborhoods around the Lake and these proposals will go a long way to making the parks accessible and enjoyable for everyone.
SAVE LAKE MERRITT! I’ve lived at the lake for nearly 9 years now and the last two years has seen a drastic decline in the quality of life at the lake and the surrounding areas. Every weekend its residents are subjected to amplified noise and traffic; our fire lanes, bicycle lanes and driveways are blocked; and an excessive amount of trash is being left everywhere.
I’m tired of having to clean up the trash on my street every weekend. I’m tired of hearing the sounds of revving engines, squealing tires, and loud music vibrating through my home all day long. I’m tired of phoning Oakland police to report cars blocking my driveway to no avail. I’m tired of the park’s grass being used as a parking lot. I’m tired of feeling trapped in my home or worse, feeling like I need to escape my home every weekend. I’m tired of seeing Oakland’s jewel, a wildlife refuge, being turned into a flea market.
The answer is simple: Oakland needs to ENFORCE THE EXISTING LAWS AND RULES. NO vending, NO amplified music, NO illegal parking. Clean up the trash and graffiti. The lake is no longer a place where families can come and enjoy a picnic. Its use should be safe and equitable for residents and visitors. This is not a place for commercial vending. A place for these vendors already exists at one of many flea markets/swap meets around the bay. The suggestion of finding a place for them around Lake Merritt is ludicrous.
The Lake, its visitors, its wildlife and its residents deserve better than this.
As a resident of East Lake, I support this item, especially the ambassador program, to find equitable solutions to make the lake area accessible to all, and find non-violent ways to resolve conflicts around use. Finding community-centered ways to resolve issues without involving the police is essential to maintaining this public space safe for all Oakland's residents.
Enough is enough
As someone who lives within a block of the lake I strongly support this proposal. The park ambassador program is especially impressive, and I appreciate that this proposal supports the neighborhood while still maintaining the lake as a needed multi use community gathering space.
This sounds like a great direction - supporting local vendors and an approach to community safety that is led by community, not led by police. The park ambassador program sounds good, especially if it is ensuring equitable use and access to the park by all Oaklanders (not just those who can afford to live next to it).
I was part of the Lake Merritt Breakfast Club engineering team that restored Lake Merritt's necklace of lights. The entire lake had been abused, maligned, and dismissed, with good cause, it was in truly terrible shape.
In 3 years, with an amazing community response, we restored the lake to its previous splendor. To huge public applause, on even a national scale, we debuted the Necklace on the night the Oakland A's hosted the AllStar game on TV. Even with the fireworks combined with turning on the lake's new lights, it was always a magical and serene place. It was never intended to be anything but a place for family and friends to enjoy the striking and almost pastoral comfort of a picnic on the grass overlooking our remarkable urban jewel, and it has been almost exactly that, place of comfort, peace, and beauty. This most recent influx of unwelcome commercial activity, is effectively discarding all that was built and all that was needed, by Oakland, and accomplished at this urban oasis. It was never meant to be warped into a Coney Island-like boardwalk peddling gee-gaws and corn dogs, whatever.
This is the oldest wildlife refuge in the US. It was commissioned by John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt.
There was never anything but universal applause and welcome for how the lake was restored, because it was done with the entire community's blessing.
It deserves better, than to be turned into some terrible little strip mall.
SAVE LAKE MERRITT.
I support the City continuing to support the safe and equitable use of Lake Merritt, specifically the Park Ambassador Program, which would provide a non-police response system. Lake Merritt is an amazing resource for all Oaklanders, including non-human residents, and there is a way to promote a vibrant community at the Lake while protecting the wildlife preserve. It is absurd for mostly white residents in high-priced lakeside apartments to try and dictate what happens in public space.
I would wholeheartedly support this initiative if I had any reason to think you'd enforce these proposed regs. Enforcing traffic safety, litter (public hygiene), and noise pollution (liveability) regs is not overreach, but it's been conflated with it. When people demonstrate the safety awareness and concern for others of sugared up toddlers, we need a nanny state.
It seems to me there must be an Environmental Impact Report before the Lake Merritt bird sanctuary and wildlife refuge is turned into a flea market. There must be City, County and State Environmental Impacts required in order to repurpose Lake Merritt as proposed. A lot of tax dollars were spent to restore the Lake and create a public recreation area, a bird sanctuary and a wildlife refuge. With the vendors, no matter where located, the park is trashed, the lake is full of trash that flows out to the bay, the residents of the neighborhoods involved are overwhelmed by crowds, noise, parking problems, blocking of ingress and egress, public urination and defecation, etc., etc, all of which is well known to you. I do not see how you can change the status of Lake Merritt without an Environmental Impact Report, and I expect o see one provided before any action is taken. Another area needs to be found to locate the vendors, flea market, dj's and partiers, not Lake Merritt. which is now called NoPoPoPark, no police park. You should be ashamed. There should be NO vending at El Embarcadero, the Library, the Pergola or anywhere around Lake Merritt. There are other city locations that can be provided successfully for this purpose.
The current situation is dangerous, is a significant expense to the City, and damages the park infrastructure. Moving it won't help much.
I say dangerous, because I was nearly hit by cars and motorcycles 4! times last night while riding my bike down Lakeshore to pick up dinner from Rico Rico Taco, a business that pays taxes. With cars parked in the center median, three times a car dodged into the bike lane, where I was riding, nearly hitting me. A fourth time a motorcycle darted out from between two parked cars and nearly hit me. All in two blocks. I also observed 2 people who had set up bars and were selling mixed drinks and shots of liquor.
The vendors take up all the parking, the vendors don't make any effort that I have seen to deal with the trash they generate, leaving it all to the City. Further, news articles from earlier this summer indicated that vendors threatened City workers. That is unacceptable.
The situation grows worse as the weather improves, because the City has abandoned any kind of enforcement. Why would the vendors listen? There are no repercussions. The few parking citations that have been issued have not been paid. There is nothing inequitable about parking in red zones - this is a public safety issue.
Enforcement of existing rules - no vending, no illegal parking, no amplified music - would resolve the situation immediately. This would keep the park open for people to use in the manner it was intended, as a park, not a flea market.
I am not able to view the report.
What is the City good for if it can't MAINTAIN ORDER?
Oakland will receive $192 million from the Rescue act, compared against its annual budget of $655 million. Let's use this money to restore order and good governance throughout Oakland, starting with its jewel, Lake Merritt. Enforcement and good management of the Lake will radiate throughout the neighborhoods as residents and visitors learn that inconsiderate and dangerous behavior will not be tolerated.
-Install a semi-permanent barrier in the center lane. It will be inconvenient to residents but reduce sideshows, illegal parking, and overall density.
-Enforce existing ordinances related to amplified music and vending.
-Place toilets and trash containers in locations that are not eyesores.
-As for vending, only if it's well regulated and rules are enforced.
Like my neighbors, I now experience regular PTSD-related cortisol hits, mostly from amplified noise and long-frequency sound waves from sideshows and motorcycles. These sound waves vibrate my entire building. I'm also very distressed by the parking problems, loss of access to emergency response, trash, environmental impacts, public toileting, public drunkenness, and threatening behavior by a guy who drives a blue ATV who drives on the grass and accelerates toward picnickers before veering away at the last minute.
The fireworks last year were terrifying. I love Oakland, but I will leave altogether if order cannot be maintained.
How can we access this report up for approval? The hyperlinks above go nowhere (View Repor,t View Attachment A, View Attachment B, View Attachment C, View Attachment D). Tomorrow the invitation to comment here closes. That's shady.
In General, If the city is unable or unwilling to enforce current Oakland ordinances such as those that address the extreme amplified music and other nuisance noise, illegal vending (unpermitted food and drink vending, cannabis and liquor sales) Illegal parking, dangerous traffic violations (speeding, hot-rodding, sideshows, driving under the influence), and illegal fireworks, then it doesn't much matter what else you propose... does it? New ordinances or rules or alternative measures of any kind will be ignored like all the other rules.
You might consider that the enforcement issues are at the heart of the residents of Lake Merritt opposing the commercial sidewalk vending. Through inaction, the city is saying one comes with the other. It's also inviting the violent crime blanketing the city now. If the city can't address nonviolent crime, it certainly cannot address violent crime.
I support moving the vending over to El Embarcadero as well as the proposal to resume the weekend closures, but I believe that more action and funding is needed, although this would be a good start. The constant barrage of amplified noise, sideshows, and traffic jams along Lakeshore have make weekends a crowded nightmare.
Regulated vending is one thing, but what we need is money in the budget to enforce amplified sound and parking regulations that already exist. It genuinely feels like I'm trapped in my home on weekends with no way to leave and stop the ground-shaking noise from invading my life.
I've been a resident of the Lake area for over 22 years and is been so noisy and dirty with vendors for the last two years! Keep it clean and No noise and less craziness!!!
I've been a resident of the Lakeshore neighborhood for 3 years. I support the City Administrator proposal to resume weekend closures of Westbound Lakeshore and the moving of all vending from the open parkland over to El Embarcadero. I believe much more action is needed, but this is an important start.
The past 2 years has seen a dramatic degradation in the quality of life for residents and an encroachment on ability of visitors to enjoy the lake with families. Weekends, and now several Weekday afternoons, have presented non-stop amplified noise, sideshows, inability for residents to enter or exit their driveways, and the trashing / tearing-up of grassy areas that used to host picnics and BBQ with the arrival of industrial scale Food vendors. Our sidewalks, driveways, and entryways have become toilets. Alcohol and DJ parties are sold and hosted on public land. Illegal parking and traffic-packed street blockage on Lakeshore also regularly prevents emergency vehicle access. Coupled with fireworks during the entire months of June and July the area begins to feel like a war zone and residents like me -- stuck in their own homes among deafening noise -- begin to show signs of PTSD.
Regulated vending away from the park, and resuming Lakeshore weekend closure, is a start, but not enough. We need basic enforcement of amplified sound, alcohol and parking regulations -- as well as extending the proposed street closures to Holidays like July 4, and further into the evenings.
I oppose vending on the Lake, the now tarnished Jewel of Oakland. Lake Merritt is a wildlife reserve, I ask that you have an Environmental Impact Report done before even considering going forth.
If you legalize what has been an extremely bad situation you are essentially condoning not following the rules and ordinances. The Lake used to be for everyone now it for only an elite crowd of people who disrespect the Park and the neighborhood, and, most probably do not even live in Oakland.
Do not confuse gathering votes( from folks who probably aren’t in your district) with choosing the best for Oakland.
Brick and Mortar businesses are suffering and Oakland’s tax base will suffer, which leads to less money to help uplift the quality of all Oaklanders.
Oaklanders paid a lot of taxes to beautify Lake Merritt, don’t squander that away.
Ask yourselves why you are even considering sanctifying the noisy, dirty and non income producing vending?
Business owners pay a lot in taxes, insurance, salaries etc. Help them continue to exist or lose them to another better run City!
I echo all that has been said. Lake Merritt is a bird sanctuary and should be treated as one. Please enforce all the laws and remove this activity at the lake. It needs time to heal.