'Our babies are drinking lead and we wonder why they’re fighting at First Friday'

Oakland Recap provides summaries of public meeting proceedings that catch our attention. In this installment, we review the comments made by Oakland city council members at yesterday’s special budget meeting.

Editor’s note

City Council special budget meeting, June 12, 2026.

Yesterday the Oakland city council voted to declare a “severe and unanticipated financial event,” ten days after voters rejected Measure E.

Measure E was a $34-million-per-year parcel tax that was initially conceived and designed by city council members.

It then dropped off the council’s agenda, and later reappeared as a ‘citizen-sponsored’ initiative — written and funded by the city’s public employee unions — that only required a simple majority vote instead of the two-thirds required by state law for council-sponsored special taxes.

Oakland voters rejected the tax, with 54% opposed as of the latest tally.

Yesterday’s city council declaration of an “unanticipated financial event” suspended voter-approved protections on previous voter-approved tax measures in order to divert those promised tax funds to other purposes.

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The council also voted to make amendments to mayor Barbara Lee’s proposed budget and advance it to a final council vote for approval by June 30.

Notably, the budget amendments council approved yesterday included $2.4 million to purchase fire trucks with money from the General Purpose Fund. The Yes on Measure E campaign previously claimed that the Measure E parcel tax was needed to fund the purchase of fire trucks.

At various times during the Yes on E campaign, firefighters union representatives threatened that fire services would be decreased if the measure did not pass.