Councilmember Protests
Cutback of Crime Reduction Teams

The police department is cutting back on its Crime Reduction Teams (CRTs). In particular, north Oakland will lose its dedicated CRT. Councilmember Jane Brunner is distributing a protest that she submitted to the Oakland Tribune.

We have some questions about Ms. Brunner's attempt to portray herself as a defender of public safety.

• The city council froze police hiring for almost three years. Councilmember Brunner supported the freeze.
• Ms. Brunner echoed the insistence of councilmembers De La Fuente and Quan that Measure Y would guarantee 802 police officers. Now the council is collecting the Measure Y taxes, but the City will not have 802 officers for two years, if ever. Ms. Brunner has gone along with this ripoff, this refusal to make public safety the first priority of city government, this insult to the voters.

North Oakland has as much right as every other neighborhood to peaceful streets. The basic problem for all of Oakland is that our city has half a police department. The City employed 734 officers at the time the council wrote Measure Y in July 2004. Today we are below 690 officers. The councilmembers have systematically run down the police department to the point of total inability to guarantee a minimum of public safety.

The solution is not for one neighborhood to claim priority over other neighborhoods. Such a sentiment is understandable on the part of innocent neighbors fed up with open drug dealing, boom cars, burglaries and robberies. But from the mouth of a councilmember who has only let understaffing get worse and worse, such grandstanding is shameful.

To get a real solution, we need a full police department, To get that, it appears, we need a new council to replace the pork barrel gamesters who have brought Oakland right to the edge of the cliff.

Brunner Pits Oaklander Against Oaklander – Again

For the second time in a year and a half, councilmember Brunner is attempting to pit residents of her district against residents in the rest of Oakland.

In a Feb. 23 message Brunner reports that the police department plans to shift two Crime Reduction Teams (CRTs) from north Oakland. She calls on constituents to join her in demanding that this transfer be stopped.

The basic problem, as many Oakland residents know by now, is that the city council maintains only half a police department. Most recently, the City hired consultant Harnett Associates to study the department. Among other points, their report said:

Although the structural and operational issues described above are critical to improving the crime-fighting performance of the Oakland Police Department, there are other significant impediments undercutting performance. The first and most obvious is staffing. By the standards of many other American police departments, Oakland, with an authorized strength of 802 (including Measure Y officers who have yet to be hired) is understaffed to serve a population of more than 400,000, fielding fewer than 20 officers per 10,000 residents. In contrast, New York City fields more than 40 officers per 10,000 residents and Washington D.C. fields about 60. (p. 7)

Yes, neighbors have organized as best they can in the absence of police support. More than 75 people turned out for a recent meeting of the 10X neighborhood crime prevention council. Yes, the officers are working hard, in fact, under great stress with mandatory overtime.

Brunner then goes on to include herself as part of the solution, although she cannot mention the staffing issue without pairing it to "better programs for offenders." In truth, member Brunner shares full responsibility with the rest of the council for leaving Oakland underpoliced to the point of near-collapse.

Somehow, councilmember Brunner wrote her appeal as though there were no history, as though she had not done exactly the same thing back in November 2005.

The city council needs to make a commitment and adopt a solid plan to get to at least 1,100 police. Oakland residents and the working police can see that any goal less than that is doomed to fail. Who wants to be part of failure?