Piedmont Avenue Branch Library Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Branch Library
80 + YEARS & Counting! 80 Echo Avenue, Oakland, CA 94611

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In early March, Friends were optimistic that the City of Oakland could pursue a long-term lease with the Oakland Unified School District on the former Piedmont Child Development Center (CDC) next door (details in our March Newsletter, more background and links in the February Newsletter). The shutdown for Covid-19 prevented Friends from ramping up community and City support for this opportunity. As noted in the June Newsletter, Oakland's budget cuts are now a more immediate concern (the Oakland Library department has reserves that softened the cuts for FY20-21 but things may get worse in the future).

Meanwhile OUSD has not released any updates specifically about lease negotiations for the Piedmont CDC, but related actions suggest that a long-term lease for the library is still on the table if the City can muster the funding and commitment. On June 24 the OUSD Board accepted qualifications for five consulting firms to be in a pool providing "Specific Asset Management and Real Property Services" to assist the District in "disposing of underutilized properties"; these firms are not contracted yet, but cleared for future tasks to follow up on the 7-11 Committee's recommendations for 5 sites including Piedmont CDC (as well as cataloging and evaluating other vacant OUSD properties for possible revenue generation).

On June 10 the Board also approved application for a State waiver in the case of two other properties that were designated "surplus", allowing OUSD to *not* take the highest bidder for a long-term lease, if that would go against priorities identified by the Committee's report. This is a procedural step that indicates OUSD still wants to respect community input to the 7-11 process, which we hope also applies to the expressed support for library use of the Piedmont CDC.


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