Thank you, Chair bass. I am um, I was very concerned and really happy that members of the public reached out to me about just the vast breadth of how much money the city is allocating to, to these businesses to engage in, you know, given contracts to these businesses, and I am sensitive to the fact that I've been, I was asked to just completely vote no and not support what seems to be discriminatory practices on the part of the city. But I also wanted to hear from our city staff around number one, the actual process that was gone through to come to only allow a $350,000 contract out of a multi multi million dollar budget allocations to to a few of these businesses, because I don't think that process is really clear. So I wanted to ask, through the chair to our Department of Transportation Director to number one, explain the thinking behind this contract, while these several contracts, and kind of walk us through briefly and concisely about why it seems like once again, small businesses, especially black businesses, are not able to compete with such significant projects in the city of Oakland. So I wanted to start there and just get an understanding for the public because these things can seem a little complicated.
