Nikko Fortunato Bas recently finished her first month in office as a member of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors after being elected in November to the seat representing District 5, which includes parts or all of the cities of Oakland, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville and Piedmont.
Before becoming supervisor, Fortunato Bas served as president of the Oakland City Council and as interim mayor for a few weeks after former mayor Sheng Thao lost a recall election and left office in mid-December.
The new supervisor recently spoke with Bay City News reporter Kiley Russell in an interview about how she is adjusting to the new office, the differences between her current county position and her former Oakland position, and the opportunities and challenges she now faces as supervisor.
BCN: How is the transition going? What do you see is the difference between this job and your job as an Oakland city councilmember?
Fortunato Bas: The transition is going fairly smoothly. I am about a month in so I am still building out my staff team and learning more about how the county operates. However, I’m really happy to have Dave Brown as my chief of staff. He served under both former supervisor Wilma Chan and former supervisor Alice Lai-Bitker and was supervisor himself after the untimely and tragic passing of supervisor Wilma Chan. And then I also have as my legislative director Cinthya Muñoz Ramos, who was my Oakland chief of staff for three years, and prior to joining me she was (former) supervisor Richard Valle’s public safety lead staff person for six years.
So I’ve got a very accomplished staff and we’re continuing to build that team out. They were here eight years ago at the county when supervisors Chan and Valle put forward the Ad Hoc Committee on Immigrants and Refugees, which is, you know, the ad hoc committee that I’m drawing lessons from as we’re under the second Trump Administration.
I am on the PAL Committee, which is Personnel, Administration and Legislation, and so that’s very timely. We hear federal and state legislative updates on a weekly basis. I’m also serving on the Social Services Committee. The Social Services Department is one of our larger departments where a lot of our safety net services are administered.
I was really clear when I was sworn in that I wanted to make sure the county had a very proactive response to what we anticipated from this current federal administration. So I put forward legislation to create the ad hoc committee, called Alameda County Together for All. I am chairing that committee. And then I’m on a number of external boards and commissions, including the First Five Commission. I’m continuing to serve on the Youth Ventures Joint Powers Authority, focused on young people, and continuing to serve on the Association of Bay Area Governments, ABAG, which I served on previously as a council member, and the Alameda County Transportation Commission.
BCN: Have there been any big surprises or unexpected turns of events in the transition process or anything that you’ve encountered that would, you know, stand out in terms of what your job is now?
Fortunato Bas: Sure. You know, I spent six years on the Oakland City Council and the past four years as council president, chairing our council meetings, our closed sessions, our rules and legislation committee. So that was quite a lot of responsibility and leadership. And so it’s different to be an incoming supervisor and be one of five and, we have Board President David Haubert as chair of our meetings, so it’s kind of nice to be able to be sort of a regular elected official and not have that chair or president responsibility.
BCN: During your campaign you talked about creating action plans with cities to address homelessness and health care, housing and public safety, and I’m wondering if you’re still interested in doing something like that right away and, if so, what’s the road map to getting something like that accomplished?
Fortunato Bas: Well, around homelessness, there’s definitely an opportunity. Measure W is the county’s sales tax that was passed four years ago that has been in litigation. We are hopeful it will clear litigation in the coming months and the Board of Supervisors will be able to put together a spending plan on that. I am very much interested in working together with our cities across the county, obviously, and certainly in my district, so that we’re putting together an action plan on homelessness and how to use those resources together with our cities.
You know, what we typically do here at the county is have work sessions, so I’m hoping that we can potentially have a work session on that spending plan. There’s a framework that (former) supervisor (Keith) Carson had put forward, and I think it would be great to really dig into how we pull that together in partnership with our cities.
BCN: You mentioned during your campaign, these types of coordination efforts are important because there is lots of duplication of effort between counties and cities.
Fortunato Bas: Yes, that’s exactly right. So you know, obviously, I have six years working directly with the city of Oakland, working with constituents on homeless encampments and so it’s really important to be clear what services we’re providing and so I am working with Oakland as well as Berkeley — because they’re both very impacted by homelessness in District 5 — to be clear about what our goals and responsibilities are, and also how do we leverage resources.
In Oakland, for example, there’s a lot of opportunity because Measure U, which I helped put on the ballot, provides $350 million in bond funds for affordable housing. Some of that has been expended. Some of it is yet to be bonded out, so there’s a funding stream to create permanent supportive housing which could be matched with the county’s funds to do the operations and the service provision.
That’s a good example of where there’s good synergy and good potential for collaboration. So, you can think about cities having the primary responsibility for the permitting of affordable housing, as well as supporting the funding of affordable housing when cities like Oakland actually have those funds available. And the county’s contribution being largely around providing the services as well as doing the outreach to encampments and helping people get into a pathway to interim and permanent supportive housing.
The other opportunity is also around Measure C. And that is another tax measure that was litigated. It has cleared litigation and so the board will be looking at an emergency stabilization fund to support early childhood education providers and then we’ll work on the Community Advisory Committee and the First Five Commission will work on a five-year spending plan. So I am also going to be looking at how do we really leverage those resources to boost our capacity to take care of really young children, which helps to support the economy as well as provide the opportunity for young kids to really be set up early on in life.
BCN: I know that you’re a strong supporter of alternative policing strategies and alternative public safety strategies like Oakland’s MACRO program that you were involved in getting off the ground. Can you describe what you see the county doing along those lines and what, if anything, they could be doing better?
Fortunato Bas: I think there’s a role I can play as a board member and certainly our two members of the Public Protection Committee, Elisa Marquez, who’s the chair, and now Nate Miley, I’m presuming, as members of that committee, they’ll play a leadership role and Marquez certainly has been continuing the work that Richard Valle had done around Reimagining Adult Justice and Care First, Jails Last.
I think with the new district attorney having been appointed, she’ll be sworn in on the 18th, I had a quick conversation with her. I do want to talk with her, just like I’ve talked with our probation chief, our public defender, our sheriff, about how this whole ecosystem of safety works and how we really look at ways we can, where it makes sense, use diversion tactics and strategies, as well as alternatives to incarceration and of course have accountability when that makes sense.
BCN: Can you explain where the county’s effort is regarding the creation of a sheriff’s oversight committee, how it’s shaping up so far and do you see room for improvement or tinkering with it as it stands now?
Fortunato Bas: So that is in meet and confer with the relevant unions and so it’s my understanding that it will come back to the board. I’m definitely supportive. I’m a firm believer of what I call collaborative governance, or co-governance, and working with the community, those who are impacted, to really listen and learn from their experiences and to help have that shape my advocacy agenda as I represent my constituents in District 5 and across the county.
So I have meetings coming up with the coalitions. You know, we’ve had our hands full in terms of public safety on this district attorney appointment process. So now that we’ve appointed the D.A., I’m turning my attention to a set of meetings with folks who’ve been advocating for Reimagining Adult Justice and Care First, Jails Last to really sort of build out how I can work together with them on the recommendations for both of those efforts.
BCN: Regarding the just cause eviction ordinance the board recently passed, I think you said from the dais that you would support additional protections for tenants, so maybe walk me through a little bit about what you think of the just cause ordinance as passed and what the county can be doing to codify additional protections for tenants in the unincorporated areas.
Fortunato Bas: I will support any improvements in tenant protections. You know, I would love to go further and what we set up with that approval is that in one year there will be a status update to the board and I think that will be a time when we can come together, you know, with the stakeholders and think through what additional work we can do.
There’s a lot of strong feelings and opinions, and it always takes a lot of negotiation as well as leadership and so we’ll see how far we can go and, at the end of the day, it takes the majority on any governing body to move things forward and I think we have to see how this set of protections moves forward.
Having spent time on the (Oakland City) Council and having led our efforts, including authoring the strongest COVID eviction moratorium in the state, as well as additional tenant protections, Oakland has a great track record in in tenant protections. And you know, I think the county could look to some of Oakland’s policies.
BCN: Describe your role in the sale of the Coliseum and how that process played out.
Fortunato Bas: At the Oakland City Council, and as council president, we were able to move forward with the city’s sale of its 50 percent share of the Coliseum. And in order for that deal to close and for the African American Sports and Entertainment Group and its partner organization, the Oakland Acquisition Company, to move forward with title to 100 percent of the property and then a development agreement, the county has to be able to transfer its sale from the A’s organization to the AASEG organization. So that took much longer than the city had anticipated. And it was on the closed session agenda at my first meeting (as a supervisor). It didn’t move forward and I was happy to come into this position so I could move forward a term sheet laying out a framework for that assignment. I’m just really grateful that together with President Haubert and his resolution, we were able to get actually unanimous support from the board to get the county moving forward.
What was important for this is to make sure that the developers actually got a public signal from the board that we were supportive and therefore they could continue raising the rest of the capital that’s needed to close the deal.
The county supervisors had not publicly been on record saying we support the deal with these terms and on this timeline, so that’s what I was able to do in literally my first week in office.
BCN: One of your early achievements as a supervisor was the creation of the Alameda County Together for All Ad Hoc Committee to provide strategies, advice and guidance on how to respond to the Trump Administration’s immigration policies. What do you hope to accomplish with this committee as its chair?
Fortunato Bas: I’m really glad we were able to move forward within the first couple weeks of this new federal administration to signal to our constituents that Alameda is a welcoming county, it’s a county where we view everyone as belonging and having rights and access to services that are essential, whether it’s being able to access health care or an education, or being able to call 911 and get a response.
We’re hopeful to put forward with the community accurate information about what’s happening, what’s not happening. The Sheriff’s Office does not communicate and coordinate with ICE, with the exception of when there’s a criminal warrant signed by a judge, and she also shared that she has not participated in any immigration detentions over the two-plus years that she’s been serving. I think that’s really important for the public to know. And the community did launch a rapid response hotline. It’s up now if you go to acilep.org you’ll find the number.
The rapid response line will be able to deploy volunteers to the site of potential (immigration enforcement) activity to observe and help verify, and if needed, can provide services and legal resources to people.
We wanted to be action oriented so there’s a $3.5 million ask that is coming forward (to the board) on Tuesday the 18th. $1.3 million is to help boost the staffing of the public defender’s immigration unit so that there’s due process if anyone is going through the court system, the legal system with immigration issues and then the rest of it is to help staff up the rapid response hotline and know your rights trainings, community education and organizing and then deportation and removal legal defense.
BCN: Do you have a pretty good idea of the board’s receptivity on that?
Fortunato Bas: I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to get the three votes, if not to unanimous support. And then we will work with the county administrator and our department heads to then identify the funding and execute the contracts so that we can move forward.
You know the community is in a lot of fear and uncertainty and I think it’s really important for them to know the county’s taking action.
BCN: The Trump administration is hostile to the idea of funding public safety net programs and services, which is the county’s bread and butter, so how do you think the county can respond to the chaos that’s coming from D.C.?
Fortunato Bas: Well, you know, I think our position, again, is we’re a welcoming county, an inclusive county. We’re a safety net organization, we administer the public health care system, these are essential services for people’s well-being. So our view is that these services are essential and they shouldn’t be taken away. So that’s our starting point. You know, pushing back on the federal administration trying to take away Medicaid or take away any other services.
I’m grateful that Attorney General (Rob) Bonta is very proactive in litigating some of these actions. And San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu is also very active on behalf of San Francisco County and others to defend our ability to continue providing these services and protecting our communities. The first mode of operation is understanding what’s happening and really protecting the services and the funding that we have.
Funds are flowing as of now, and so we’re going to take it one step at a time.
BCN: As an elected official who has had to make decisions about both of the recalls that removed former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao and former district attorney Pamela Price from office, could you talk a little bit about what you see as the biggest impacts to local politics?
Fortunato Bas: I would say one of my biggest takeaways is that we need to ensure everyone has an opportunity to participate in our democracy. That means getting engaged in your local government and understanding what decisions are getting made so that you’re impacting those decisions. And it also means voting because it was pretty stark to see with this last election cycle that literally a billionaire could exercise so much undue influence on our democracy by paying for the signature gathering for two recalls and paying for the campaigns.
I also think there’s a role that media has to play. You know, for Oakland, and I know this intimately, having served on the Oakland City Council and getting alerts every time there’s a homicide. Public safety literally is something that everyone in our city, our county takes very seriously and over a year ago, the mayor and the City Council decided to reinvest in our ceasefire programs and that literally saved at least 40 lives last calendar year. The most dramatic decline in both violent crime and property crimes in five years, since before the pandemic. But meanwhile, people don’t feel safe yet, and I think part of that is, you know, the media also cooperating with our government leaders around how things are changing, telling the positive stories as well as the stories that are very real.
Everyone that has been impacted by crime certainly deserves to feel safe, deserves to have some accountability and there’s just been a lot less attention to the things that are actually going right here.
It’s true that a lot of residents have fears and frustrations, just (lack of) trust with the government and, you know, it’s a time to unify, a time to rebuild that trust. And I think for everyone who was engaged in last November’s election, let’s set aside looking back and just try to channel some energy into what can we do to work together to move forward.
BCN: The county’s 2024-2025 budget is $4.6 billion. $4 billion of that is the general fund, so there’s a lot of decisions to be made. I think the board closed a $68 million funding gap by a combination of cuts, revenue increases and using savings from previous years. How is the next budget cycle shaping up and what are your priorities are going to be moving forward?
Fortunato Bas: We will be scheduling our budget meetings shortly. We haven’t started them yet.
I think one thing that’s going to be really important is to understand whether the change in federal administration might impact our budget, because a significant portion of our budget is federal grants as well as state grants that we then use to provide services or we pass through to cities. We’ll have to get an understanding of the current landscape as well as revenue projections and expense projections.
You know, the one thing I am really interested in is, eight years ago, when there was an Ad Hoc Committee for Immigrants and Refugees during the first Trump Administration there was a comprehensive report that was done which put forward a set of recommendations about continuing to be a welcoming county. One of those recommendations was to institutionalize an office of immigrant affairs and refugees, similar to state legislation that we just supported this week that (state) Sen. Lena Gonzalez is pushing forward.
So I do think because Alameda has a significant immigrant and refugee population, we do need to look at how do we institutionalize those services and make sure they’re accessible.
San Francisco has an Office of Immigrant Affairs and a number of other counties have more infrastructure than we do and they kept that infrastructure going between the first Trump Administration and the current one. And so, because we haven’t had that infrastructure, we’re having to rebuild it together with the community and so I will be specifically looking at how we can create that infrastructure.
We’ll have the author of that report come to one of our future meetings to review the recommendations and hear from our department heads in terms of what was able to move, what hasn’t yet moved and that will allow us to make recommendations to the full board.
One of the reasons why this work is so important to me is because I’m the daughter of Filipino immigrants. My parents came to the U.S. seeking a better life and I’m just really grateful that they were able to achieve it for myself and my three brothers. And you know, everyone who comes to this country is seeking economic opportunity or they are fleeing persecution. I think this country was really built on the foundation of that quote unquote American dream, right? So I think it’s really important to ensure that immigrants and refugees rights are protected and the county is able to provide services to them.
We provide health care services, you know, we’re the public health care system. Wilma Chan Hospital, Highland Hospital, St. Rose Hospital — those are operated by the county and we also contract with a number of clinics, as well. And so we are hearing people cancel their appointments because they’re afraid to seek health care. We’re also hearing some people are questioning whether they should disenroll from Medicare, Medi-Cal because they fear having their information in a database. So we are having to remind people that the county and the state do not share information. It is safe to be enrolled in Medi-Cal, please continue to seek out those services. We’ve been able to achieve very high enrollment rates, as well, so a big portion of the undocumented immigrant community actually has health care now. The threat of the federal administration through fear and other tactics could potentially result in a public health care crisis.
Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The post Fortunato Bas on her first month as Alameda County supervisor: ‘Going fairly smoothly’ appeared first on Local News Matters.