North Oakland Meeting Demands Safe Neighborhoods

More than 150 people turned out for councilmember Jane Brunner's "community advisory meeting" to tell her, police chief Wayne Tucker, and other City officials that north Oakland is not safe to live in.

Before the residents were heard, a panel of seven officials spoke to a clearly impatient audience.

Councilmember Brunner said homicides were down last year. With tunnel vision limited to north Oakland, perhaps. For Oakland as a whole, the year 2005 saw 94 homicides, eight more than 2004.

Brunner asked that police chief Tucker address a question. Noting the police have more than 100 unfilled positions for sworn officers, positions funded by Measure Y and other taxes, she asked Tucker, "How are these vacancies going to be filled?" Whoa! While campaigning for Measure Y a year and a half ago, councilmember Brunner should have known whether the promised 802 officers could be hired. The fact that she asks the question now is only a further indictment of council incompetence, fraud on the voters, or both.

Chief Tucker had a new number of Oakland police. He said we have 710 police. Actually, Oakland had 704 police on Feb. 6, 2006, a number that will decline over the next several months. (Another panel speaker, police union president Bob Valladon, disclosed that at least ten officers left the department in January.)

Tucker also had a new target date for meeting the Measure Y requirement of 802 officers. He "hopes" the City would reach 802 "in a year, by Spring 2007." The date is wholly fictitious. Less than two weeks after the meeting, a report from the city administrator projected 781 officers by June 2008. Where does chief Tucker get his numbers and dates? Union chief Valladon offered his opinion that the department would need five years to reach 802 officers.

The audience did not buy the panelists' attempts to make people sit and trust the City to do the best it can. Resident after resident told horror stories of crime in north Oakland, including:

• a rape and eight armed robberies of women around the BART train station,
  
• a Molotov cocktail bombing of a house in retaliation for a resident calling the anonymous Drug Hotline, and
  
• two gangs, "FT" and "STI," each attacking someone, beating and stomping on the victim in groups of two dozen thugs.
  

Audience speakers recognized that Oakland's police department is understaffed. The question now is, what do we do about it?

Two individuals suggested secession from Oakland and calling in the National Guard to patrol.

A speaker from the group that hosts this website, Oakland Residents for Peaceful Neighborhoods, reviewed how the council committed to 802 officers for Measure Y money, a commitment not met; how the council sold us Measure Q for the library, then cut library jobs; and now the council wants a big jump in the Landscape and Lighting Assessment. The speaker advocated voting No on every parcel tax until the City provides basic public safety with the money we are already paying.