Budget debate over, for now.

So the Council passed their budget adjustment last night and we get to stop worrying about it for a while. Well, for a little while, anyway. As time goes on and we either do or don’t receive the revenue we budgeted for, the Finance & Management Committee will have to make monthly adjustments. Read more

We’ll be keeping the park rangers after all

So, it looks like the City won’t be shutting down on Fridays after all. (Or closing parks!) You may recall that when Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums submitted his budget proposal a couple of weeks ago, he left a $10 million deficit and told the Council to figure out how to close it (offering them three options). Subsequently, Dellums explained that he actually didn’t want the Council to make their own decision, and instead expected to save the money by closing the City every Friday, cutting the pay of every non-sworn employee by 20%. Read more

I love Desley Brooks!

Except when I don’t, of course. Desley Brooks makes me really mad sometimes (I strongly disagree with her positions regarding the Equal Access Ordinance, for example), but I really, really, really love that she consistently questions implementation and feasibility of the proposals that come before the Council to a degree that no one else on the Council does. She rocks! The proposal heard last night (resolution passed by consensus, but whether we actually do it or not will be decided during budget discussions) for a program authorizing the City Attorney’s office to prosecute infractions and misdemeanors (PDF!) is an issue that really deserves a long post of its own, and something I’ve been meaning to write about for a year now (Seriously! I found one of my old notebooks the other day, and I was reading one of my “blogs to write” lists from last summer, and this topic was on it with like three stars next to it.) and I will definitely do it post-election.

For now, you can read the staff report (PDF!), and I’ll just say that, having watched the discussion of this at Public Safety and Council, this program may be a great idea, but it really just isn’t ready at all right now, and we have no sense of how it’s going to work. Given that, it would be irresponsible to spend over $800,000 funding it at this time.

There was a decent discussion on the item last night, which made me happy. As usual, the quality and reasonableness of Councilmembers’ comments varied widely, but Desley Brooks was perfect and awesome, said exactly what I would have said if I was sitting on that dais, and I just have to share it now:

For those who don’t want to watch the whole video, here’s the highlights:

What we’ve been told by representatives of the DA’s office at numerous neighborhood crime prevention council meetings is that certain cases just aren’t being charged in Oakland. So if we’re using existing resources and a part of why they weren’t charging certain types of cases in Oakland was lack of resources, how does this program then fit in?

and

We’re going to say that we’ll put the money forward to have these attorneys prosecute these cases, but if we don’t have judges, then the program’s not going to work. And I don’t want to sell the public a bill of goods about what we’re going to do only to say that there aren’t sufficient resources there.

Will this program work? How is it going to work? What is the timeframe in which we expect this to happen? How will whatever program we fund or whatever ordinance we approve actually make a difference in people’s lives? These are the questions that the Council needs to be asking all the time. Real leadership demands more than good intentions, and real progress will never be made if we do not constantly keep our eye on implementation. Implementation! That’s basically the entire point of this blog.

The field training problem with police recruitment

So I promised yesterday to talk about the Field Training Officer (FTO) problem. Here’s the story. Once Police Officer Trainees complete Oakland’s police academy, they cannot immediately begin working patrol positions. Instead, they have to complete a four month long field training program, where they work with an FTO. The Council asked the police department last fall about the possibility of running concurrent academies in order to more quickly fill vacant positions in the police force, and in response, the department explained that doing so would not place more officers on the street, due to the limits of the field training program. This is what the report (PDF!) said: Read more

Trying, and failing, to do something good

So last night was one of those refreshing Council meetings where everyone brought their A game. They delayed the discussion on the Piedmont Pines utility undergrounding (I missed the explanation for that one, so I’m not sure what the deal is there), but they got a few things done. They preserved work/live in industrial areas for existing artists, although no new conversions will be allowed. Jane Brunner hammered the police department and other city staff (politely) about providing more thorough information in their reports. Desley Brooks pulled the slapdash consent to search proposal, and it will come back to the Public Safety Committee a month after their next meeting. They finished at a reasonable hour. It was all really nice.

But one item depressed the hell out of me, and I’d like to relay the entire discussion to my readers as an illustration of just how difficult it is to get anything done in this town. 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

Nancy Nadel exempts golf courses from smoking ban

So for the third time this fall, the Oakland City Council passed a first reading of the new outdoor smoking ban tonight. A first reading of an amended ordinance that exempts golf courses. The ordinance will have its second vote on December 4th. Read more

Once again, the Council proves they don’t care about good public policy or practicality

The Council voted to pass the smoking ordinance just before 2 am this morning. Jane Brunner left the meeting before the item was heard. Ignacio De La Fuente, Pat Kernighan, Jean Quan, Nancy Nadel, and Henry Chang said yes.

Here are some highlights from what I managed to jot down of the discussion.
Nancy Nadel:

For some of my constituents “exposure to smoke can be as deadly to them as being shot in the street.”

Read more