A taxpayer-funded youth cannabis program and a politically connected subcontractor in Berkeley burned through $607,000, yet still came up empty-handed.
The city shelled out funds from a $1 million state grant between 2022 and 2024 to Berkeley Youth Alternatives and its subcontractor, Upline Solutions, led by Patricia Brooks — now chief of staff to Oakland City Councilmember Kevin Jenkins.
Upline was tapped to launch a cannabis ad campaign, but the effort fizzled before it began. The company was also tasked with organizing a community task force, which finally started in early 2024 — almost two years after the grant kicked in and a year and a half after payments started flowing.
The non-profit — Berkeley Youth Alternatives — trained teens for a peer-led cannabis education effort aimed at reaching 1,000 students through at least 10 presentations. The teens received training, but the presentations were a no-go, according to an April 2025 Alameda County evaluation cited by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The program’s ambitions also fell short. Early plans called for counseling and services for 75 to 180 middle and high school students. That was later cut to 25-60 new participants. Over three years, the nonprofit reported serving 48 clients, but evaluators said it was unclear how many were new.
Brooks pointed to COVID-19 disruptions and city staffing shakeups, adding that the ad campaign was dropped because of a change in cannabis policy, though she offered no further details.
“Not every contract works out super well…it was a hard contract,” she told the Chronicle.
Meanwhile, state filings show Upline Solutions was incorporated by Brooks and Yelda Bartlett — the wife of Ben Bartlett — attorney and City Councilmember for South Berkeley. Another filing listed Jenkins as a registered agent.
Brooks said neither Yelda nor Ben Bartlett financially benefited.
Jenkins said he had no financial involvement and did not work on the Berkeley contract.
However, Bartlett admitted he was both disappointed and troubled that BYA and Upline had left so much of their contracted work unfinished.
“Maybe there’s a world where they could still fulfill the missing elements,” he said.
Davina Hurt, who directs the government ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, told the outlet that “the buck stops with the city.”
“It breaks the public’s trust that their money isn’t being well spent,” she said. “It’s upon the city to ensure that they handle things appropriately by either stopping payments, retrieving their money back, or demanding that the contract be fulfilled.”
Of the original $1 million grant, about $235,000 was returned to the state. The city also spent roughly $125,000 on its own staff overseeing the program.
Despite the failures, Berkeley Youth Alternatives has continued to receive city funding through other contracts and initiatives.