Fruitvale Adds Demand for Peaceful Neighborhood

One hundred residents of the Fruitvale district confronted a councilmember and police brass on Jan. 5, 2006.

The meeting follows similar expressions of anger at a mayoral appearance in west Oakland and a community meeting in the Maxwell Park district. (Oakland Tribune, Jan. 6, 2006)

In two weeks the MGO Democratic club will host a similar roster of City officials on the topics of community policing and Measure Y. It seems that one consequence of Oakland's severe understaffing of its police department is that top officials must spend more evenings and weekends trying to deflect residents' anger.

At the Fruitvale meeting, area resident Jean Higgins told them, "We're disappointed with your ineffectiveness."

The foot-in-mouth award went to councilmember and mayoral wannabe Ignacio De La Fuente.

"I'm as dissatisfied as you are because I live where you live," said De La Fuente, who represents Glenview-Fruitvale. "I have the same challenges as you do, but it's my job to help find a comprehensive approach."

Wait a minute. The council, including De La Fuente, promised that Measure Y, with a so-called balance of more police and more social programs, was the beginning of a comprehensive approach. Although the council is raking in $20 million of regressive parcel taxes and parking-lot surcharges per year, the money is not going to the promised uses. The additional 63 officers required in Measure Y are nowhere in sight. Indeed, the City employs fewer police officers, not more, than it did when the council wrote Measure Y in July 2004.

A police lieutenant at the meeting could only offer an upcoming publicity effort to show people how they can give better witness descriptions. That's fine, but it is not the weak link in the chain. In the Allendale district, for example, residents have identified and documented drug dealers and pimps. The one solitary Problem Solving Officer trying to serve ten Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils knows exactly who the problem persons are in the specific situations she has had time to address.

The real problem is that there are not enough police to respond quickly when the moment to catch someone arrives; there are not enough police to build prosecutable cases; there are not enough police on patrol to deter brazen daylight violent robberies right in a major supermarket parking lot; there are not enough officers out of their cars walking, observing, and talking to both residents and bad guys.

De La Fuente, no matter where he lives, always has a development giveaway plan in the works. He plays politics with social program money. In deeds, as opposed to words, there is no evidence that the councilmembers have the slightest concern for peaceful neighborhoods.

The other leading mayoral candidate, Ron Dellums, has not addressed the crisis of police understaffing in Oakland.