I think that it is easy to misunderstand the role of government officials, and managers in general. It is not primarily to, by yourself, come up with good ideas. It is to foster the environment that separates good ideas from bad, and then be effective in implementing those ideas. I do not expect either candidate to come up with the solution for effective crime fighting in Oakland. Neither has a background in law enforcement. Those ideas need to come from the police force itself, and if their leadership is not getting the job done, it is time to change the police leadership. Social policy and programs are more in the domain of the council, but those programs have timelines of years to see changes, not the months that we want to see changes in crime rates now.

To me it seems that, based on endorsements, that Hamill is more likely to be able to work with the rest of the council to actually implement changes. At this point I am not sure that Kaplan will be able to build those bridges to the members of the council that have endorsed Hamill. Rebecca, now is the time to say how you expect to do that. Because, in my opinion, coming in as the outsider and saying everybody on the council is wrong, is not going to get them to change how they work. So if you can provide evidence of how you can work with people who do not agree with you to get things accomplished, let’s hear it.

As I was writing this I realized that to me, the best solution might be for Hamill to win, and then hire Kaplan as her policy wonk to come up with the ideas that Hamill can then work to get implemented.

My theory is that the SF media has always focused on Oakland crime much more intensely in order to protect the San Francisco tourist and retail industries. Also, the fact that Oakland City Hall is derelict in their duty to maintain downtown Oakland in an acceptable manner, leads to the perception of a high crime area. Oakland can’t get away with graffiti and trash downtown when it already has an uphill climb dealing with the slanted SF media’s crime reporting. When visitors go downtown and see graffiti on traffic signs, garbage containers, traffic control boxes, parking meter boxes, mail boxes, benches, newspaper racks, along with litter near bus stops, it creates an unpleasant perception of neglect and crime.

In my case, I have been elected by, and serving, all Oakland voters in the “at-large” seat on the transit board, and thus, I have been involved in a range of issues (transit, street and road maintentance, the relationship of transportation and land-use planning, solar power installation, job training and apprenticeship programs, budgetting, working to obtain funding from regional, State, and Federal government bodies for local projects, etc) throughout Oakland.

I know Oakland needs major action to improve public safety, which includes policing and other strategies. When I include economic issues in my discussion, it is not to discount this. In order to effectively do what was suggested here, encourage young people to look to other job options, and not a life of crime, requires that we be able to honestly depict other life options. If we are going to say, “there really are other job options for you” — we need to make sure this is true.

My knowledge of Oakland also comes from experiences beyong my elected role. This includes living for several years in each of: Fruitvale, Grand/Lake, and Temscal neighborhoods. Getting around Oakland myself on foot, bike and transit and thus seeing the situation “on the ground.” Working for a local project to protect Oakland residents from predatory loans and foreclosures (which included working in all areas of Oakland — and especially those hardest-hit by predatory loans).

I have many stories of walking alone in various Oakland neighborhoods. I’ll share one for an example. When coming home from an out-of-town trip, I arrived at the Greyhound Bus station in downtown Oakland at around 1:00am. I then walked from there, (San Pablo ave at 21st street) to Temescal (Telegraph Ave), alone at that hour — in the middle of the night. It took about 45 minutes.

While walking, I passed a bunch of people. Some seemed to be homeless, bunked down on a bench. Some were going home from bars and parties. A couple appeared to be sex workers, some appeared to be selling drugs, and some seemed to be on their way to or from work (e.g. nurses on night shift). At only one point during this walk was I afraid. One drunk man started yelling at me, something about me not looking like a “real woman” and various homophobic drunken slurs. In the end, I got home safely.

Here are the top three Oakland intersections for robberies between June 2007 & June 2008. 1) 13th & Broadway 27 robberies. 2) Fruitvale & International 24 robberies. 3) High St. & International 18 robberies.

Interesting how the No.1 intersection for robberies in Oakland, 13th & Broadway, would only be 9th in SF intersections. Also, the high density “high crime” intersections of International Blvd. in East Oakland actually have less than half the robberies that plague intersections in retail rich downtown SF. Amazing!http://www.sfgate.com/maps/oaklandrobberies/

These are stats for a one mile radius of 4th & Market in downtown SF for a 90 day period. This one mile perimeter encompasses perfectly every neighborhood in downtown SF. I will also include the serious crime statistics for Downtown Oakland for a one mile radius from 14th & Broadway. This area encompasses all of downtown Oakland bordered by Grand Ave. to the north, Lake Merritt to the east, Jack London Square to the south, and 980 to the west . The one mile radius from City Hall actually includes a small portion of West Oakland which is not “Downtown.” This makes downtown proper stats a little higher than they would be. But, in order to keep a one mile radius for both cities I decided to include the one mile radius for Oakland. Here are the stats side by side.

Aggravated Assaults: SF 733, OAK 98. Robbery: SF 300, OAK 99. Burglary: SF 344, OAK 108. Auto Theft: SF 210, OAK 179. http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=23813 http://gismaps.oaklandnet.com/crimewatch/default.asp

Also, the San Francisco Chronicle did a recent article detailing robbery in the Bay Area. The Chronicle detailed robberies in the most robbery plagued intersections in the Bay Area. In Oakland, it was 14th & Broadway and 13th & Broadway with around 27 robberies each. In San Francisco 4th & Market had 56 robberies. In short, the most robbery plagued intersections in Oakland would rank only ninth in San Francisco robbery plagued intersections.
http://www.sfgate.com/data/

Anyone who thinks crime is the reason downtown Oakland suffers from a lack of retail is ill informed. When you look at the abundance of retail in a far more crime plagued downtown San Francisco, one has to come to the conclusion that it’s the “perception” of crime generated by the slanted and cherry picked reporting used by the SF centric news media which allows downtown SF to prosper while downtown Oakland struggles to attract retail. Also, I neglected to mention that downtown SF has recorded twenty homicides compared to two in downtown Oakland including a recent police shooting at 15th & Jefferson which is considered a justifiable homicide and will be deducted from the official count by the FBI at years end.

As long as Oakland allows this slanted reporting by San Francisco media institutions to create the perception that downtown Oakland is unsafe nothing will change. Oakland needs to fight back and hire a PR firm to put out these statistics in order to educate Bay Area residents about the relative safety of both cities downtowns.

I didn’t attend the discussion and couldn’t vouch for whether or not I would agree with V’s assessments of the two candidates. Coming from a completely unbiased person with respect to this race: this post quite clearly seems to be a direct response to the forum and the answers both candidates offered there, rather than any sort of personal attack.