The city of Oakland had a particularly tough budget approval process this year. The future of capital investments in the city's transportation system was at stake.
In a statement to the Bay Area News Group after the City Council came to the deal, Mayor Libby Schaaf said the city's budget would "allow us to make unprecedented investments in homelessness and affordable housing, and to start a historic road paving plan on July 1," referring to Oakland’s $100 million, 100-mile street repaving plan.
That the street repaving plan was approved means Mayor Schaaf won out in a political tug of war with Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan that put the Oakland Department of Transportation in the middle.
The budget also "puts more than $100 million toward affordable housing projects, including around $60 million of funds from Measure KK — a 2016 bond measure that provides $600 million for affordable housing and infrastructure projects — and $55 million that was already budgeted," according to Tadayon.
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