OPD at 837 doesn’t mean what Dellums seems to think it means

So, if you read the newspaper, it probably did not escape your notice that the Oakland Police Department has now exceeded its staffing requirement of 803 officers, and is, in fact, now at its highest level of staffing in history, with a total of 837 officers.

When you read these stories, you may have noticed two claims from Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums that probably made you feel a little better about the direction Oakland’s been heading. Read more

OPD, 803, and Measure Y

So tomorrow, four years and twelve days after Oakland voters approved an $88 annual parcel tax to fund increased police services, the Oakland Police Department will hit an important milestone and finally reach (surpass, actually) the 803 officers voters have been paying for.

Before you get too excited, this does not mean that the promise or obligations of Measure Y have been filled. Read more

OPD says we’re on track for 803. I’m not so sure.

On February 25, 2008, a representative of the Oakland Police Department, who called himself a recruiting specialist, when describing the accelerated police recruitment plan, the one we just funded with $7.7 million, told the Measure Y Oversight Committee that they had a “drop dead deadline” of March 31st to have 300 applicants in background in order to fully staff the two police academies beginning on May 19th.

Okay, so in case you don’t remember, I was hell-bent against this funding allocation. I said that it would not get us to 803 by the end of the year, that it would create serious deficit problems down the road, and that it was exceedingly irresponsible of the City Council to approve the request. Read more

The City Council cannot be trusted.

So the Council last night approved the Mayor’s funding request for $7.7 million in Measure Y money to pay for a new police recruitment package. It’s always disturbing when the Council makes bad decisions, although rarely surprising. Last night was especially disappointing for me because they spent like two hours hashing out just what an irresponsible move this is, to the point where it was pretty crystal clear to everyone in the room that this is going to cause a lot of pain down the road.

Desley Brooks characterized the city’s use of Measure Y funds to date as an abuse of the public trust, and she’s absolutely right: Read more

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Back in April 2006, Oakland’s City Council and then-Mayor Jerry Brown were feeling increasing heat from angry citizens about our understaffed police department. Only four months into the year, the City had already witnessed 36 homicides (we’re at 27 for 2008, BTW). People were holding emergency vigils to raise awareness of the growing violence problem. So our elected officials made a public commitment to fully staff the police force by the end of January 2007 (is this sounding familiar yet?) and gave the police (PDF!) department $2.8 million (PDF!) to do whatever they needed to get the job done. Some of the money came from a surplus in the General Fund, and the rest came from unspent Measure Y police funds.

A big chunk of the money was going to pay for 4 police academies between April and January (big ones, with space for 42 recruits each) and 2 lateral academies between April and January. The police department was also going to use it to institute monthly testing “to ensure a constant supply of applicants.” They were going to offer consolidated tests, so all three phases could be completed in a single weekend. We were going to use advertising funds to blitz local media markets. Mayor Jerry Brown announced that he would be partnering with the Peralta Community College District to create a pre-Academy training program that would help reduce our attrition rate. Read more

Maya Dillard-Smith has some good questions about Dellums’s funding request, but nobody seems interested in answering them

I finally got a chance to review the DVDs of the Measure Y Oversight Committee meeting and Public Safety Committee meeting over the weekend, and I hope to get a more thorough post about the police recruitment plan that will be considered by the City Council tomorrow night up by the morning.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to look at the fact sheet (PDF!) and op-ed (PDF!) prepared by Measure Y Oversight Committee chair Maya Dillard-Smith on the issue.

I share Dillard-Smith’s concerns with the recruitment strategy and funding request, and I think she does an excellent job explaining the problems at hand. I find it exceedingly frustrating that the Mayor’s office, the City Council, and City staff display little respect for the Committee members and their concerns about putting the Measure Y police fund into deficit. Check out this scene from last Monday’s meeting to see what I’m talking about.

Related: $7.7 million - spend it now, pay for it later

$7.7 million - spend it now, pay for it later

If you’re reading this, odds are that you’ve also read one of the many stories in local newspapers about Ron Dellums’s police recruitment proposal over the last three weeks. You may also have read some of my thoughts on the plan.

So you probably already know that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is asking the Council for $7.7 million from Measure Y funds to fund a new strategy to fully staff the police force by the end of this year. Did you ever wonder about all that cash? Like, where it came from? Or why we aren’t using it already if it’s just sitting there ready to spend? Or what it’s supposed to go to? Read more

$1.5 million in police recruitment ad money denied

When I was buying my plane ticket for vacation, I struggled with when to return. My real work schedule allowed me to come home on Tuesday, but I hesitated to stay away that long, since it would mean missing all the Committee meetings for that day. I ultimately decided that it was beyond sad to schedule a vacation around the City Council, and went ahead and booked the longer trip.

Of course, when I found out that yesterday’s Committee meetings included a report (PDF!) from the Oakland Partnership, more discussion of the Estuary Policy Plan update, and Dellums’s police recruitment strategy at the Public Safety Committee, I was kicking myself. So many important topics, and I was going to miss them all!

Luckily I can get DVDs from KTOP, but until then, I’m stuck trying to tease out what happened based on a Trib story. Read more

Despite what you may have heard

The City Council is not doing anything about affordable housing today, and they are also not considering a plan to fight crime that Dellums has submitted. Instead, they are going to listen to an hour of public speakers saying we need IZ or we don’t need IZ, then sit around and have the same conversation they’ve been having for years, then not do anything about it. Later, Dellums will ask for Measure Y reserve funds that we actually do need to pay police salaries and buy equipment so he can spend it on buying TV advertisements instead: this is is plan to fulfill his completely unrealistic goal of getting to 803 by the end of the year. Any small shred of optimism I had that this was possible was wiped out after getting Chief Tucker’s head-in-the-sand one line answers to a series of questions I asked about the specifics of the recruitment package. Follow-up questions have not been answered at all.

Anyway, I’m tired of writing about this stuff, and busy with other work, so that’s all I’m going to say for now. Maybe if I get my errands done quickly I’ll have more about the recruitment package up before the Council meeting starts, but it’s also possible that I won’t.

So many meetings, so little time

Tonight is lousy with important meetings. Blighted buildings, industrial zoning, Measure Y, and Children’s Hospital are all competing in the Wednesday night time slot. How is a concerned citizen supposed to choose? If only we had TIVO for public meetings. Anyway, take a look at what’s on the calendar. Read more

Ron Dellums’s police recruitment strategy - I read it so you don’t have to

I was going to write about this next week, when it actually went to Council. Annoyingly, Dellums sent out a press release about it, and as usual, it immediately showed up all over the local news. Sigh. Anyway, none of the stories actually explain the plan, so if you want to know the details, the whole thing is outlined below. Read more

No Measure Y Oversight Committee meeting on Saturday

The Trib reported today that the Measure Y Oversight Committee would be meeting on Saturday to complete their recommendations for the City Council. That meeting has now been cancelled “due to defective notice.” The Sunshine Ordinance (PDF!) requires that regular meetings are noticed to the public and agendas are made available 10 days before the meeting. For special meetings (which this was), they only need 48 hours notice. Agendas for this meeting were sent out to subscribers on February 6th. I’m not 100% clear on why it had to be cancelled (perhaps the agenda and notice were e-mailed out, but not filed properly with City Clerk or publicly posted? Who knows - I shouldn’t speculate, I guess), but there you go.

You can download the draft version of the Semi-Annual Report (PDF) here. Overall, I think the recommendations are good and well considered. I’m not going to comment on them beyond that until they’re finalized.

UPDATE: The meeting is now scheduled for Wednesday, February 13th. 6:30-9:00 PM. The meeting will be held in the City Council chambers. Annoyingly, it conflicts with a fairly important Planning Commission meeting. Alas.

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