City Public Safety Manager Opposes
Adequate Police Force

Neighborhood Services Manager Claudia Albano showed her opposition to an adequate police for Oakland in a Jan. 27, 2009 broadcast letter to the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils (NCPCs). The NCPCs are groups of residents that typically meet every month or two to work on crime issues in their police beat. They cooperate with community policing officers.

Albano transmitted her letter with a survey that she asked NCPC members to complete. The survey is a list of recommendations for City action to improve NCPCs. It has fourteen categories, each with half a dozen or so recommendations. Albano asks people to rank their first, second, and third priority in each category.

Toward the end, the eleventh of the fourteen categories is about the police. Most of the other categories are about setting goals, holding meetings, communicating with residents of the area, and other issues of process.

In the police category, one of the six choices is "Hire more police officers." Albano immediately adds a phony statistic to play down the option. She writes, "Oakland currently has about 18 officers per 10,000 people. The national statewide average is about 23 sworn state and local enforcement officers per 10,000."

Yes, Oakland has about 18 police per 10,000 residents. Albano covers up the fact that this is half a police department by comparison with major cities. Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis and most major cities have 35 to 45 officers per 10,000 residents.

Instead of writing the truth, Albano compares Oakland – ranked the fifth most dangerous city in the country – with "statewide averages." That means throwing in the staffing levels for peaceful suburbs like Orinda. That means comparing Oakland, a national crime leader with 400,000 residents, with a host of small, relatively untroubled cities like Danville.

Intellectual dishonesty in order to avoid confronting the collapse of policing in Oakland – that is what City Hall practices.

Previously, Albano allowed a drug rapper to take over part of her National Night Out event.

Albano recently moved from her position under the city administrator to the mayor's office. She is now deputy public safety director. It is expected but not official that she will continue managing the neighborhood services coordinators and City services to the NCPC groups. In that role Albano will tabulate the results of her phony survey, diverting attention from police staffing. This is how City Hall manufactures fantasy.