\u201cEvery single Oaklander deserves clean, safe and healthy neighborhoods and streets,\u201d Lee said during a news briefing about the new rules and other efforts the city is pursuing to combat illegal dumping. \u201cEveryone deserves to live in dignity and each neighborhood needs to be dignified,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ordinance more than doubles the fines for dumping trash on Oakland streets, parks, sidewalks and other spaces to $1,500 for the first offense, $3,000 for the second and $5,000 for the third.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also, if a person is caught dumping illegally multiple times on private property within a 10-year period, they could face triple the initial civil penalties.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ordinance also makes it a crime for anyone who owns a car to use it or allow it to be used for illegal dumping and for people to haul trash without a license plate on their vehicle.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BCN-20260420-ILLEGALDUMPING-04.jpg\")
Oakland City Councilmember Zac Unger, along with other city and nonprofit leaders, at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, April 20, 2026. A press conference was held to praise the passage of a new ordinance that increases penalties for illegal dumping and expands efforts to clean up city streets. (Kiley Russell\/Bay City News)<\/p>\n
\u201cOakland isn\u2019t trash, so don\u2019t trash Oakland because we\u2019re coming to get you,\u201d Unger said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ordinance also seeks to prevent illegal dumpers from pinning their crimes on the city\u2019s homeless residents<\/a> by making it clear that garbage generated by people living in encampments isn\u2019t defined as illegal dumping under the new rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n The exemption doesn\u2019t apply to \u201cbulky items, upholstered furniture, hazardous waste, construction or demolition debris, or waste matter brought into the encampment by persons who do not reside in the outdoor encampment,\u201d according to the legislation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lee said it\u2019s important to remember that much of the dumping around encampments comes from people who don\u2019t actually reside in them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t care about the dignity of the people who are living there,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOakland isn\u2019t trash, so don\u2019t trash Oakland because we\u2019re coming to get you.\u201d<\/p>\n Zac Unger, Oakland councilmember<\/p>\n Lee and Unger also praised Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley and his Policy Director Erin Armstong, who are working on a similar countywide ordinance and developed draft language that all the county\u2019s cities can use to adopt complementary new rules about illegal dumping.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize in this office that illegal dumping knows no bounds and if Oakland starts cracking down or we start cracking down in the unincorporated area, that the dumpers are just going to move,\u201d Armstrong said. \u201cBut if we all have the same accountability, if we all have the same fines and the same ways of holding people accountable, then we can make a real difference.\u201d<\/p>\n AI joins fight against dumping<\/p>\n In addition to the new ordinance, city officials praised the council\u2019s decision to adopt a $150,000, one-year pilot program using AI-empowered drones to scout out, map and track illegal dump sites.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lee said the program was approved by the city\u2019s Privacy Commission and she other officials assured Oaklanders that the technology will use rigorous privacy safeguards and will allow the city\u2019s Department of Public Works to proactively identify and clean up trash piles without solely relying on citizen complaints and reporting via 311.\u00a0<\/p>\n The drones are from a San Francisco company called Aerbits and will operate separately from the city\u2019s existing network of 36 illegal dumping surveillance cameras that are mounted at various locations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will not be capturing license plates or any personal data<\/a> with the Aerbits technology<\/a>,\u201d said Kristin Hathaway, Oakland\u2019s assistant director of Public Works. \u201cIt\u2019ll just be looking at garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n Lee said the city is also lobbying for new statewide legislation, SB 1218, carried by state Sen. Jessie Arreguin, D-Berkeley, that would require that people pay their illegal dumping fines before they\u2019re allowed to renew their vehicle registration with the Department of Motor Vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe all want to build an Oakland where our streets reflect the dignity, pride and the resilience of our community and we know that too many Oaklanders are seeing trash on the streets and illegal dumping in their neighborhoods,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n City councilmembers Kevin Jenkins, Charlene Wang, Rowena Brown and Ken Houston also attended the news briefing, as did the city\u2019s Director of Public Works Liam Garland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A COTERIE OF OAKLAND political big wigs gathered at City Hall on Monday to praise the passage of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[17768,2080,2351,6286,10582,4422,10372,143,5365,145,144,99498,22375],"class_list":["post-278690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-ai-technology","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-barbara-lee","tag-fines","tag-garbage","tag-homeless-people","tag-illegal-dumping","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-city-council","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-ordinances","tag-zac-unger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BCN-20260420-ILLEGALDUMPING-03.jpg\")
Oakland City Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, along with other city and nonprofit leaders, at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, April 20, 2026. A press conference was held to praise the passage of a new ordinance that increases penalties for illegal dumping and expands efforts to clean up city streets. (Kiley Russell\/Bay City News)<\/p>\n