Judge Rules City Violated Measure Y

In a tentative ruling on a lawsuit brought by Oakland resident and attorney Marleen Sacks, California judge Frank Roesch ruled that mayor Dellums' $7.7 million raid on the Measure Y fund last Spring is a violation of law. The City must restore the money to the fund.

The judge also ruled that the City committed another violation when it used Measure Y funds to train officers who are assigned to the patrol unit rather than community policing. That illegal action adds an estimated $11 million that the City must restore to the Measure Y fund.

Additionally, the judge ruled that the City failed to submit proper annual audit reports for two fiscal years detailing how it used Measure Y money, and the City must complete those reports.

Late last year Dellums boasted that with Measure Y money he had brought the police department up to the 803 officers authorized in the budget for several years. It was a flash in the pan, a brief political wave of the hand. Dellums proceeded to cancel a police training academy and announced that staffing would drift back down, falling below 803 this summer.

The ruling is a victory for community policing. It also strikes a blow against City misuse of special taxes, coming just as City Hall considers whether to put more dishonest tax schemes on the June 2, 2009 ballot.

Oakland has half a police department compared with most major cities. We need at least 1,100 officers in this city of 400,000 residents. The movement for basic public safety is bigger than a single lawsuit. The court's tentative ruling is a victory against bait-and-switch fiscal games. It is time for Oakland officials to get down to basic services, overhauling the entire budget and City operations for efficiency.

Mayor and City Attorney Dig In Their Heels

Mayor Ron Dellums and city attorney John Russo issued statements about the Measure Y court ruling. They refuse to accept the reality that they broke the law.

Dellums issued a Feb. 11 statement asserting in effect that because he raided the Measure Y fund, Oakland now has 803 police officers. He does not remind us that he canceled a police academy in December and even said himself that staffing will fall below 803 this summer. The brief run-up to 800-plus officers was a political maneuver to fend off a threat last year from developers who were circulating a petition that would set a floor of almost 1,100 officers in the City charter. Once Dellums got past that, he walked away from the understaffing problem.

Dellums also claimed, "We now have a problem-solving officer [PSO] in every beat." Yet on Jan. 14, 2009 a resident reported to a neighborhood email list, "Our PSO for beat 20X has been reassigned, a new one has not yet been assigned, and no one, absolutely no one including our neighborhood services coordinator, informed the community that his has occurred." In December another resident reported that the "acting" PSO in his beat was only an officer adding some overtime to his normal duties elsewhere.

City attorney Russo in his Feb. 10 statement just ignored the theft of money from the Measure Y fund, which he had blessed with a legal opinion when the mayor and city council conducted the raid last Spring. Writing that "the voters intended to have the most effective crime fighting force available," Russo tries to paint the City as simply trying to restore public safety in Oakland, when in fact the mayor and city council have done nothing substantial for peaceful neighborhoods, substituting instead various disconnected political thrusts in one direction then another.

Russo "strongly recommends" that the City council authorize an appeal of the court's ruling.

Councilmember Jane Brunner chimed in, too, wailing that Oakland could only obey the court's order to restore the money taken illegally from the Measure Y fund by closing libraries and parks. Her actions do not match her words. Brunner did almost nothing to campaign against Measure OO last year, the raid on City funds by social program operators for their "Kids First" grants.