Trash at the intersection of Brush Street and San Pablo Avenue in Oakland in March. The city received a $9.3 million grant for anti-dumping efforts.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
One of the billionaires backing San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s agenda is now helping Mayor Barbara Lee take on one of Oakland’s most intractable issues: trash.
Crankstart, the foundation funded by venture capitalist Michael Moritz, will spend $9.3 million in Oakland over the next three years to help Oakland crack down on illegal dumping, Lee announced on Thursday.
“The partnership with Crankstart shows what is possible when we refuse to accept the status quo and instead bring together the public and private sectors to build the Oakland our communities deserve,” Lee said in a statement.
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Lee came into office pledging to use her network to help raise philanthropic funds for the city. So far, this is the biggest commitment she has secured.
Philanthropy may become a more important part of Lee’s strategy to address quality-of-life issues, particularly after the failure of Measure E, a parcel tax that would have raised an additional $34 million a year for the city’s budget.
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Oakland already spends about $12 million a year on illegal dumping. The city had planned to use some $2.1 million of the Measure E dollars to pay 11 additional staff members to address encampments and illegal dumping, and also use $1.8 million to replace some of the city’s aging dump trucks.
The money from Crankstart won’t fund what Measure E would have — instead, it will be used on tech-focused enforcement initiatives and a few prevention programs. For example, the funds will expand the city’s illegal dumping camera network from 35 cameras to 85, and help pay to continue an AI-assisted drone pilot program that the council funded earlier this year.
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Liam Garland, Oakland’s public works director, said he hopes the new tools will help the city make better use of existing staff, even without the additional positions Measure E would have funded.
“We’re going to increase our citations, which will make it so that dumpers start feeling the pain,” said. “We want the word to get out that dumping is not tolerated in Oakland.”
That extra enforcement will be coupled with steeper fines for violators. In April, City Council passed a law to double fines for first-time violators of illegal dumping to $1,500 from $750.
But catching the dumpers is still a challenge, and technology to monitor illegal dumping has provided mixed results in the past. A recent city audit found that, in the five months between November 2024 and March 2025, staff issued just 10 citations based on the 30 surveillance cameras around the city.
Garland said that’s changing. The number of citations has increased since the city installed new license plate recognition software about six months ago. In the first three months of using the software, the team issued about 50 citations.
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Prevention is also set to be a part of Crankstart’s work. They will fund a public awareness campaign about free bulky pickup options, and continue a pilot program to increase the size of residential trash bins, to test whether that can help reduce illegal dumping and litter.
“We’ve put a lot of work into picking up as much material as we can,” Garland said. “Part of Crankstart’s approach is looking at how to bend the curve on the dumping volume, so there’s less material for us to dispose of.”
While Crankstart’s main focus in the Bay Area has been on San Francisco, the organization has funded a number of projects in Oakland, such as a 33-unit affordable apartment building for teachers that opened earlier this year, and the Oakland Promise, an initiative by former mayor Libby Schaaf to fund early childhood and education programs.
Illegal dumping — an issue tied up in both public health and civic pride — felt like an area where philanthropic dollars could help, said Missy Narula, Crankstart’s CEO.
“Crankstart is really proud to lean in, largely because we have such faith in the city leaders who have made this a priority,” she said.
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In San Francisco, Moritz and his foundation have supported several initiatives aligned with Lurie’s agenda. The organization gave $9 million for food assistance in October when SNAP benefits lapsed during the government shutdown, provided $10 million toward a $40 million redesign of Embarcadero Plaza, and also is providing funding for a street-sweeping initiative.
Lee came into office pledging to use her network to help raise philanthropic funds for the city. In January, she announced that Kaiser and Pacific Gas & Electric would pay $900,000 to reestablish the city’s police cadet program. The Kapor Foundation has also given the city some $2.1 million to pay for science and technology education.