Rediculous!!!!

I didn’t go to the local NCPC meeting last night because I feel like they’re a waste of time. Our NSC doesn’t get involved with our neighborhood and once we lost Sandra Sanders-West as our NSC, I decided not to waste any more time.

I have to say that every day I feel more and more like Oakland is a lost cause. We can all only do so much. But hey, don’t let my negative feelings about what’s going on affect you!

Sometimes you have to step back for a while and see if the interest rekindles. I’m hoping that all is not lost.

Since we heard about Claudia’s termination of employment, there have
been lots of rumors, speculation, and changing of positions. Some of
the facts we know:

First, she was asked to sign an agreement to vacate her office by the
end of Jan 30, 2009, and was stunned by the demand. There was no
preparation or lead-in to the demand. It was made and delivered.

Second, she was told that there would be a new Public Safety
Coordinator for Oakland, Dorlista Reed, who would be assuming her
duties. Claudia knows Dorlista and worked with her in Oakland
during the 1960s and 70s. She lunched with her a week ago and
discussed the Public Safety Coordinator position.

Third, Claudia was not informed at that time that there was a Deputy
PSC position nor encouraged to apply for it.

Fourth, the Mayor’s Office, through a citizen with close connections
to the Mayor, announced at a public meeting that the termination of
employment was a clerical error, and there was an intention to
encourage her apply for the Deputy PSC position. A meeting was to be
scheduled to discuss that position.

Fifth, that meeting was confirmed scheduled for Fri. 1/30 at 2 pm
AFTER Claudia called the Mayor’s office to see if she was expected to
attend a meeting that she had not been informed about.

Sixth, today, Claudia is in limbo: she is required to vacate her
office by 5 pm Friday according to the termination document she
signed. She has a meeting at 2 pm Friday to discuss possible
continued employment, for which the outcome is not clear.

ASSESSMENT: this was not well-handled, and the outcome is not
clear. Citizens who appreciate Claudia’s improvement of neighborhood
services, neighborhood watch, and Neighborhood Services Coordinators’
performance should contact both the Mayor’s Office and their Council
member’s office to weigh in on the issue. This appears to be a
supremely botched situation with no party benefiting in the process.

Worst case, this is an attempt to consolidate department heads. One
is new with new responsibilities to coordinate police, fire, and
public works activities that relate to public safety; the other is
established to coordinate neighborhood organizing and police
community services to the neighborhoods of Oakland. To suggest that
one person can do both is to replace 3 department heads with one. The
fair-minded question to Oakland citizens who will have to pay for
this is whether the new person new to the job from outside Oakland
will be able to do this well, effectively, at all?

Claudia’s termination was accompanied by her right hand assistant’s
(Felicia Verdin) reassignment to Community and Economic Development
to an as-yet undefined position. Felicia is incredibly capable and
dedicated. Neighborhood Watch has grown from between 85 and 100 when
she started to 530 today. NW started in Oakland in 1967 and has been
copied by the nation. It is smart, it is effective, it is
inexpensive. We have the right to be proud and stand tall while all
of the negative publicity about Oakland swirls around us. Should
Felicia have been reassigned given her successes and passions for the
work?

Success is usually praised and compensated. In the case of Claudia
and Felicia, it has been punished. Does the Mayor’s office have any
idea of what is going on on the ground? The problem is not in the
troops in Oakland; it is in their leadership and their disconnection
from the actions on the ground. Satellite vision does not work for
managing people doing the day-to-day work that keeps the city and
neighborhoods functioning.

My take on the situation: when things are tough, we should not
jettison the best of the best. Claudia qualifies, so does Felicia.

Calls or e-mails to the Mayor and City Council members are needed.

Don Link PSA 2

If we sacrifice our best and maintain the rest in our times of
cutbacks, we destroy the present and joopardize the future of our city.

Neighborhood Services are delivering real value to the city: they are
building community capacity for day-to-day events, and, more
important, capacity for crises and catastrophes. Organized
neighborhoods are the basic structure of successful cities.
Neighborhood Services are creating them.

A new Public Safety Coordinator tasked with managing the Neighborhood
Services Division, coordinating the Police Dept. , the Fire Dept,
CORE, Public Works, and other divisions of city government involved
with public safety cannot be one person. Today, one normal person
could not manage the NSD, yet one not-normal person does and thrives.
Neighborhood Services is the Golden Goose in Oakland. It a’int broke,
doesn’t need fixing; leave it alone and let it continue laying the
golden eggs.
Task the new

Susan Montauk post:

Re: [OPD] Claudia Albano

This makes me very angry. I just sent this e-mail to the mayor and will send it to the newspapers:

To His Honor, Mayor Dellums:
I am writing in protest of the firing of Claudia Albano. I can’t think of one good reason to let go of an individual who has worked so hard to promote community policing. If you are truly committed to improving the safety of this city as you professed in your State of the City Address Monday night then you should understand that Claudia has done more than any other individual to involve Oakland citizens in their own safety and encourage them to work with their beat officers. Her efforts have brought hundreds of new Oakland blocks into the neighborhood watch system. Your action will set back Community Policing to before the dark ages of the 90s–is that what you want for Oakland and for your legacy?

Susan Montauk
Boyd Avenue Neighborhood Watch
Former Chair NCPC12Y/13X
———–
Don Link post:
“I just heard and confirmed that Neighborhood Services Manager Claudia
Albano has been fired by the Dellums administration. Her last day
will be Friday.

Firm reasons were not given, but some feel that it has to do with the
effort to unify the City Administrators and Mayors offices, something
that was recommended in the Bobb report, and moreover, to put someone
from the Mayor’s team in Claudia’s position.

As someone who has worked on the creation of her position and worked
with her closely over the years, I was stunned by the news. I know of
no Oakland public servant more energetic, dedicated, and effective
than Claudia. Her job was her life, and the results of her efforts
testimony to her restless need to change things for the better.

Don Link, PSA 2″

At least one decision that went against a young cop, involves a cop who was accused of lying by his superiors as to whether he submitted a single page paper report. considering how bad the city’s record keeping is by it’s own admission, firing a cop for allegedly not filing a report is nuts.

Now, another scandal has just come to light. Apparently, a Captain for the Department abused a suspect in custody, by joining in a beating which involved kicks to the ribs, which eventually led to the man’s death months later.

This is like Barney Fife leading the Keystone Cops. This Department needs to be dismantled from the top down and reorganized into a professional 21st Century crime fighting agency with the interests of the good citizens of Oakland at the forefront. Enough of the corruption, the incompetence, and the self-serving attitudes.

Community Policing is a valuable resource in motivating neighborhood residents to cooperate with police in reducing crime. Although it is not a cure-all, community policing can have a positive impact by establishing a volunteer police chaplain program (at little of no cost to the PD). Assigning volunteer police chaplains to specific police sectors where their respective congregations are located accomplishes three purposes. 1) Clergy are known in the community and are privy to issues in their specific neighborhood. 2) A PD has an additional and respected voice in neighborhoods. 3) Parental control of neighborhood youth is enhanced. PD chaplains riding with police officers send a message to the community that the faith community is a player in reducing crime and public nuisances. “Stories of the Street: Images of the Human Condition” demonstrates the significant contribution volunteer police chaplains make in serving specific neighborhoods. Ref: http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/StoriesOfTheStreet.html
Volunteer Police Chaplain Steve Best, (Ret.)

the report about the allegations against the head of IA is one more tear in the Tucker hot air balloon. How many more will it take for Dellums to fire him?