Assaults and Thefts Surround
City-Funded Senior Housing

In August 2006 seniors began moving into Lincoln Court, 80 units of housing at 2400 MacArthur Boulevard in the Dimond district. Councilmember Quan pushed through more than $3.5 million in sweetheart loans and subsidies to help developer Meea Kang make a bundle on the project.

The City and the developer did nothing for public safety in connection with Lincoln Court. Now the results are coming in. During just the month of November 2006, assaults and thefts generated a dozen police reports in the neighborhood of these senior citizens:

Lincoln Court and surrounding area, site of a dozen serious crimes in November

At a community meeting in September 2006, councilmember Quan suggested that crime around Lincoln Court would actually decrease because seniors overlooking the street would look out their windows and call the police immediately upon witnessing a crime. Quan did not explain how that helps when the understaffed police do not respond. November's crime record shows how silly Quan's theory is. However, her suggestion is not entirely ridiculous. The residents of Lincoln Court will be safer if they stay home and gaze out the window than if they take a stroll to the commercial district two blocks away. The residents should also advise their visitors not to park in the area, unless willing to risk theft or vandalism of their car.

Councilmember Quan among others is a leader in spending City funds on everything except public safety. In fact, just a few weeks after the Measure Y violence prevention tax passed, she said at a budget workshop that "Police may be a priority, but not to give more money."

The residents of Lincoln Court have joined the people of the Dimond district who suffer an appalling lack of public safety. To this day the district does not have the walking officer it demanded from the council, although it has an officer who roams far down MacArthur to double as a part-time walking officer there, too – when he is not pulled off to patrol duty.

KRON News: Crime Hurting Dimond Commercial District

Will the newly-arrived senior citizens at Lincoln Court find shopping pleasant two blocks away at Fruitvale and MacArthur? KRON TV news interviewed a cashier at one business who was robbed at knife point.

In the Dec. 18, 2006 report "Carmen" describes how two young men came into the store, one of them brandishing a knife. She is so worried about consequences of speaking out that she asked KRON not to show her face. The atmosphere on the street makes people nervous, and sales are dropping because families are not comfortable coming in to stores.

The cashier said she does see an Oakland police car from time to time, but an officer on foot would be much more effective and reassuring. However, after more than 400 Dimond residents and merchants have contacted City officials over more than two and half years, the area has only one officer who occasionally walks the Dimond, who also has similar responsibility for the Laurel area more than a mile away, and who is pulled onto special patrol and other duties as well.

The KRON report also notes that just in the previous week, Long's Drugs and a Shell gas station in the Dimond distict were robbed.

Similarly, a blogger just up MacArthur Blvd. is not happy about "The ones that robbed The Food Mill, Jade Palace, my neighbors, Dallas Liquors and the beauty salon. All these places were robbed at gunpoint in the last two months along the MacArthur corridor within a three-block area of my home. Where are the police, and why when I call them do I have to define the term 'suspicious'?"

Dimond merchants "may also consider hiring a private security company after it becomes a business improvement district, a self-taxing organization to raise funds for the district's promotion, event planning, security, and cleaning services." (Montclarion, Dec. 15, 2006) However, an officer of the Dimond merchants' group hears from other business districts that money spent on private security is wasted. A security officer can confront someone about disruptive, obnoxious and illegal behavior, but if the person says, "Screw you," there is nothing the private officer can do. After paying all their taxes, merchants are faced with the dilemma of paying even more in a desperate effort to establish the public safety that is the first duty of any City government. The city council is great at giving away public resources to favored developers, but councilmembers refuse to address the first condition that thriving businesses need – peaceful streets.

The only real solution for the Dimond district is the same one that every area of Oakland needs: a City police force of at least 1,100 officers.