More taxes for everyone, not just property owners

So at the Council meeting way back in July when the Council voted in favor of putting the police parcel tax (Measure NN) on the November ballot, District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan, who supported the tax, said that she would be introducing a proposal in the fall that would allow landlords to pass the cost of the new tax onto their tenants. Read more

City Council says no to Ada Chan

Last night, the Oakland City Council rejected Mayor Ron Dellums’s nomination of Ada Chan to fill the seat left vacant by Suzie Lee on the Oakland Planning Commission by a vote of 3-4-1 (Y: Quan, Brunner, Nadel; N: De La Fuente, Kernighan, Reid, Chang; A: Brooks). Lee’s term expired on May 5th. Dellums did not bring a nomination for a replacement Commissioner to the City Council until July 1st (PDF). When it became clear that the Council was unlikely to confirm Ms. Chan that night, the Mayor withdrew the item.

Chan was back on the agenda last night, at the first post-recess Council meeting. Despite having had two and a half months for the Mayor and Ms. Chan to persuade those concerned about her suitability for the position, both declined to make any effort to do so, instead using the time to marshall strident support from union and affordable housing advocacy organizations while shutting out the business community. Read more

Banner summer for Oakland

So, to recap.

The general political climate in Oakland at the beginning of the summer was best summed up by the Trib in their Council race endorsements, which they introduced by saying “If there were ever a city crying out for leadership, it’s Oakland,” then proceeded to endorse the re-election of every single incumbent. Oakland voters followed suit at the polls in early June, and sent Nancy Nadel, Jane Brunner, Ignacio De La Fuente, and Larry Reid back for four more years.

Mid-June news of a large-scale gang bust by the Oakland Police Department was almost immediately eclipsed by allegations that Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly had interfered with the 2-month investigation by tipping off her nephew, a member of the Acorn gang and City of Oakland employee, that his phone was tapped.

Faced with widespread citizen outrage, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums took the opportunity to demonstrate his unique ability to find the absolute worst possible way to handle a municipal crisis, first giving her until Monday, June 23rd to either resign or be fired, then pre-empting his own deadline by sending out an e-mail on Friday, June 20th directing all department heads to report directly to him. Nevertheless, Edgerly remained at the helm at the beginning of the following week.

Then on Tuesday, June 24th, Dellums held a press conference announcing that Edgerly would retire from her post, at the end of July (although she would continue to work for the city for as long as six months while selecting her own replacement) but claimed that the announcement was unrelated to the brewing scandal, saying her retirement plans had been in place since January. When pressed for details on the search for Edgerly’s replacement by Chip Johnson on KQED Forum, Dellums Chief of Staff David Chai remained insistent that the plan had been in place since January, but refused (or was unable) to answer follow-up questions about when the search for a replacement had begun.

By Friday, June 27th, Councilmembers Ignacio De La Fuente and Pat Kernighan were calling publicly for her to be placed on administrative leave until her retirement date, and Dellums finally did so that night, naming his interim CEDA director Dan Lindheim acting City Administrator. Edgerly fired back the next Monday, claiming that Dellums didn’t have the authority to appoint her replacement, in response to which, the Mayor finally fired her on July 1st, then told reporters the following day that claims he had behaved indecisively were “absurd.” Ultimate fallout of the Edgerly scandal is yet to be determined, awaiting the results of an FBI investigation, for which subpoenas were issued in late August.

Reaction to the Edgerly mess from the rest of City Hall varied widely. Oakland City Attorney John Russo, Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby, and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente stepped in with government reform packages, offering proposals ranging from a new anti-nepotism law to an audit of hiring practices to records reform, while District 3 City Councilmember Nancy Nadel called such actions “opportunistic power grabbing (PDF)” and warned that we should wait for all the facts before “rushing to judgement.” Calls to eliminate waste in Oakland’s government were met with derision by District 4 Councilmember and wanna-be Mayor Jean Quan, who announced in a newsletter that she believes the worst case scenario is that the City has less than a million dollars in waste that could be cut.

The administrative crisis was compounded by a financial one. The Council passed a mid-cycle budget with $15 million in cuts in June, but got two bits of unpleasant news the next month. First, in response to findings of vote counting irregularities with LLAD from activist David Mix and ORPN founder Charles Pine, the Council admitted defeat and agreed not to collect the tax, putting them another $12 million in the hole. Then Dellums acknowledged that the revenue estimates he had presented in his (late) budget proposal were inaccurate by millions of dollars and announced he was bringing in former City Manager Robert Bobb to sort out the mess and find a replacement for Edgerly. Bobb announced two weeks ago that the actual deficit was somewhere between forty and sixty million dollars. Matier and Ross later reported that Oakland’s fund reserve dropped from over $60 million last year to $22 million currently. Although the City is unable to account for where the money went, Finance and Management Committee Chair Jean Quan tried to put a rest to concerns, saying “It’s not like the money was stolen.”

Things just got worse in August, when the City experienced a spree of local business robberies that appeared to have no rhyme or reason, with targets ranging from a pizzeria on Skyline to a nail salon in Temescal to a monument to mediocre cuisine in Rockridge. Dellums responded by blaming the economy, informing the citizens that the apparent crime rise is perception, not reality, and calling in the volunteer Guardian Angels to patrol our streets. The spate of high profile crime wasn’t limited to restaurant robberies - Oakland residents also got to deal with arsons in West Oakland, a four year old boy getting hit by a stray bullet, and this weekend, the second murder this year of a pregnant teenager. A Labor Day shooting in East Oakland brought the year’s homicide tally to 95, up from 88 this time last year.

In response to rising concerns about crime, the Council agreed to place a parcel tax on the November ballot that would hire 105 additional police officers and 75 additional police service technicians over the next three years, at a cost of $275/year for Oakland homeowners. Dellums named former County Health Department director Arnold Perkins as his temporary Public Safety Director. Although the public will have to wait until September 11th to see the Mayor’s full public safety program, residents got a preview of Perkins’s answers for the Oakland crime problem in a Trib editorial this weekend, where Perkins suggests to Martin Reynolds that citizens combat the crime problem on their own by bringing fried chicken to the groups of young men loitering on their streetcorners.

You know, following this stuff day to day, you’re always angry, of course, but as with anything, after a while you just sort of get used to it. There’s outrage, sure, but somehow it just gets dulled over time. I had a wake-up call this weekend, watching the way people not from Oakland reacted to my telling them, in this kind of jaded, matter-of-fact way, about the restaurant robberies and the statements in response from Dellums and Tucker. Their response, which was just complete disbelief that anyone would tolerate living in such a place, made me realize just how totally, totally fucked-up the situation is in this town. (I am sorry for the language. Although I may have a few sailor-like tendencies in person, I do try to restrain myself on the blog, but sometimes there are no other words.) The people of Oakland deserve better, and there is absolutely no reason we should tolerate the status quo even a day longer. Immediate action is needed from City Hall. As for what that action should be, well, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow on my thoughts there. Today is just about reveling in completely justifiable outrage.

Council says no to Jean Quan’s Kids First Compromise

The vote was 6-2, with only Jean Quan and Nancy Nadel voting in favor.

Pat Kernighan and Ignacio De La Fuente patiently provided the large audience of extremely rude teenagers very clear explanations of why the City simply cannot afford the increase, although Pat said that she would be requesting the Council increase the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth funding to either 3% or 3.5% of the unrestricted General Fund (up from 2.5% currently). I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to fly in light of a budget deficit rumored to be around $90 million, but I guess that’s an issue to be worked out later.

Ignacio De La Fuente said that placing a compromise measure on the ballot would only lead to further ballot box budgeting, and that if they consented to this, they could expect similar set-asides for seniors, parks, and whatever else people desperately want and just doesn’t get enough funding.

Jane Brunner made me happy by including a brief comment in her remarks about how programs funded through OFCY should be scrutinized more heavily for their outcomes, so that we can give more money to the ones that work better. That’s all I’m saying!

More later.

Police parcel tax for November ballot (Updated!)

This morning, the City Council’s Rules Committee will consider placing a parcel tax for police services, requested by the Mayor, on the November ballot. I’ll be on an airplane, and therefore tragically unable to watch the discussion. Curses!

Anyway, here’s what Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is asking for. The idea is to add an additional 35 police officers and 25 police service technicians (PSTs) every year for the next three years. By the end of that period, we will the have an additional 105 police officers, bringing the total authorized force to 908, and an additional 75 PSTs, who can perform department jobs that don’t require a sworn officer. They’re cheaper. It’s a refreshingly realistic timetable. 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

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

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

Council finally listens to constituent concerns on smoking ban!

So, amazingly, the Council did not do as I predicted yesterday and just let Barbara Killey get away with this ignoring the instruction to exempt bars. Not that she was reprimanded or anything, but they actually did not pass her legislation.

Killey’s further attempts to explain the fire safety concerns were ludicrous - she clarified what she was told by the Fire Marshal - that the concern is that people should not be blocking a radius of 5 feet from the center of a door. How this translates into a necessary minimum of 5 feet from any door or window is completely unclear. Henry Chang responded with the common sense statement “To me, 5 feet, 2 feet, whatever. If people block the door and people want to get out, they move. If people want to get in, they move.” Well said. Read more

Pat Kernighan thinks animal control has more important things to do.

I don’t really have an opinion on this dog tie-up rule. I have heard people make good arguments for both sides, and since I don’t have a dog myself, this isn’t something I really have any experience with or personal investment in. In general, my inclination is that we should have fewer laws, not more, especially when we’re talking about something that will not be applied practically. But I really just don’t know enough about it to take a position one way or the other.

Councilmembers, on the other hand, have to take a position on everything. You’d think that, over time, this would result in the articulation of some sort of clearly discernible legislative philosophy. Wrong! District 2 Councilwoman Pat Kernighan opposes the 15 minute dog tie up rule, in part because: 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

Larry Reid gets it. Pat Kernighan, Jean Quan, and Nancy Nadel? Not so much.

Tuesday night, the Public Safety Committee voted 3-1 in favor of the new secondhand smoke ordinance. It will now move on to the full City Council. The Committee struck the sections banning smoking in new multi-unit housing and declaring secondhand smoke a public nuisance.

So here’s what is going forward: Read more

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