These are the Atlanta Ambassadors, apparently paid by the downtown business improvement district. In Atlanta’s downtown, 65 to 70 percent of the crime is larceny (simple theft). Not relevant to Oakland’s armed takeover robberies.

Furthermore, Atlanta does not use the Ambassadors as a substitute for police. As the Atlanta BID folks write, “In Downtown we have more certified law enforcement (over 400 in the aggregate between the eight jurisdictional agencies [city police, Georgia State polices, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, and the Capitol Police -- sounds like downtown Sacramento -CP]), more private security (over 3,000), and more eyes and ears watching and listening than any place in this City.” (http://www.atlantadowntown.com/NewsCrimeStats2008.asp)

I’m all for finding good ideas from far away — but with due diligence.

In a recent column, Chip Johnson described the restaurant take-overs as “crimes of opportunity.” This distinction is helpful, because this type of crime can be prevented in ways different from crimes of revenge (where a specific person is the target of violence). As a result, I do believe there are immediate public safety steps we could take which would have an impact on this type of crime (as well as others too). Specifically:

Visible, uniformed, walking (or on bicycle) public safety patrols along commercial strips. To the extent possible, this could be done with police assigned to beats in those areas. However, since Len asked what can be done immediately (and since expanding the police force is a multi-year process) I would specify that I would work to Immediately provide safety patrols for Oakland’s commerical areas by other methods.

Ideally, I would like to develop for Oakland a program like Atlanta’s — which uses uniformed professionals to provide both safety, and information, in commercial districts. (Improving public safety and economic success). However, even if what we do does not end up being quite like Atlanta’s program — I will work together with existing stakeholders and programs (such as our Business Improvement Districts, some of which have already hired security guards), to immediately improve and expand safety patrols in commercial districts. (Including working to put together funding for them).

In some cases, the safety patrols may remain until we expand our police coverage. In other cases, we might decide that the “non-police” safety personnel are working well, and stick with that in the long run. (Which can free up police for other duties).

At the same time, I will work on longer-term solutions including: improving OPD’s evidence-gathering and analysis capacity (so more crimes can be *solved*), expanding police personnel, and meeting with people at the County and other stakeholders to come up with better solutions to the jail problem.

I’m not entirely sure what you expect. Kaplan’s public safety proposals seemed pretty detailed to me – where exactly do you feel it fell short?

To me, the contrast between the two candidates is very striking. I mean, both candidates say we need to hire more police. For one of them, that’s it. The other has taken the time to study barriers to recruitment and staffing and make concrete suggestions as to how we remove those barriers. One says the same four things that pretty much everyone in Oakland has been saying for years, the other is actually looking at successful practices from other cities and talking about how we can adopt them here.

The key difference between the two candidates for me is one of engagement. I find it staggering that one whole point of Hamill’s five point plan is that we should do something that’s we’ve already done. In contrast, Kaplan has demonstrated, to me at least (and I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I’m a pretty tough person to bullshit when it comes to Oakland-related policy issues), a real depth of understanding and attention to detail on a wide range of topics.

But if the only difference was, as you suggest, one of intelligence – would that be a bad thing? I mean, don’t we want smart people making decisions?

My bike comment wasn’t about ecology. It was about the intuitive sense of the urban landscape that I believe can only be achieved through extensive biking.

The fact that Rebecca is from Toronto is encouraging to me – it means she has a sense of what a polyglot city looks like when it’s not a holy wreck like ours is.

And lastly… WHY THE HELL MUST EVERY POLITICIAN BE THE MATRIARCH OR PATRIARCH OF A NUCLEAR FAMILY? That’s identity politics at its most prevalent and most base level. Ick Ick Ick. I know plenty of people who are great parents and lead unremarkable professional lives. As a matter of fact, I think that’s more common than simultaneous excellence at home and at work. I have also known people who were excellent in their work, with family lives that were in ruins. I think the entire topic is bogus and the suggestion Molly is making is little more than a thinly veiled identity based attack.

Consider the opposite point of view: Perhaps Rebecca is better equipped to be a full time councilmember because she DOES NOT have a nuclear family to take care of. Perhaps she’s better equipped because she has that much more energy available to give to us, rather than to her brood.

Or perhaps the candidate’s personal lives are largely irrelevant, and we should look at their policies, personalities, diplomatic styles and decide accordingly. Yeah, maybe that’s it. It’s a job interview, not a debutante ball.

Does it ever occur to people when they think about candidates’ personal lives that it’s virtually impossible to get an accurate read on someone so removed? Think of how long it takes to get even a fleeting and unreliable impression of your neighbors, or even your cousins or uncle’s family. The reality is that we know precisely squat about how people live at home, and we’re arrogant is we assume we know much at all.

what so deeply impressed you other than kaplans intelligence?

-len raphael
temescal

The fifth point in her five-point plan is that we should audit Measure Y funds. This makes me seriously question just how engaged Hamill is, since, if she’d been paying attention, she would know that we already have a thorough annual independent audit of Measure Y and on top of that, Courtney Ruby is currently doing her own audit of Measure Y, which she announced in March.

In contrast, I saw Kaplan attend and speak at the Measure Y Oversight Committee as early as last fall, when I started watching them. At the Public Safety Committee meeting where the audit that Hamill is apparently unaware was scheduled to be presented, Kaplan was there, passing out a nine page document detailing her public safety proposals. While I didn’t agree with every proposal in her platform, I was deeply impressed with the depth of thought and research that had clearly gone into crafting it.

I have yet to see such nuance or consideration from Hamill on any subject. Hopefully, she will be able to produce a crime platform of substance at some point during the campaign – then at least would be able to have a more interesting discussion than one centered on whether or not Kaplan from Canada (she is, BTW, and has dual citizenship).