Oakland's Two Mayors Stage Phony Safety Actions

Okay, Oakland has only one mayor, Ron Dellums; we'll get to him in a moment. However, the other guy, outgoing state senator Don Perata, has already staked his claim to be the next mayor, telling KCBS, "I love working out in the community, and frankly, it's what I'm good at."

On Saturday, Feb. 9, Oakland got a taste of how good Perata is when he stiffed residents. It was the day of his highly publicized gun buyback. People could supposedly bring in guns and get $250 for each one, no questions asked. Just about everything that could be botched was:

• Out-of-town gun dealers unloaded their slow-moving inventory at a hefty profit. The spokesman for the police department noted, "They came in with 30 or 50 guns, and some still had price tags on them, like $35." (Oakland Tribune, Feb. 12, 2008)

• Perata provided $80,000 he had lying around from so-called private donors; fatcats are always giving the state senator money for no apparent reason. The cash soon ran out, so the chief of police, instead of shutting down the buyback, bowed to likely pressure from Perata and issued vouchers. Perata thus stiffed the City for about $170,000; however, he later said he would raise the funds himself.

• Although Perata announced the buyback weeks ago, no one took responsibility for efficient administration of the event at its three locations. By 10 a.m. people were forced to wait in their vehicles in lines stretching for blocks. Hundreds of vehicles idled and inched along for hours, pouring fumes into "green" Oakland. Near one dropoff station, reports a resident, "Traffic on Coolidge and surrounding streets was completely jammed up for hours. We needed assistance from one of the OPD officers on duty just to get our car out of the driveway." Once the cash was gone, many people left after waiting hours, not having been told of the voucher alternative.

• Perata's claim that people could turn in guns with no questions asked was technically true but actually false. The police department will test the weapons to see whether their ballistics match evidence from any crime.

With $250 per gun for as many as five of them, any criminal made a nice profit to fund his next wholesale drug purchase.

While Perata put the City in hock for a publicity stunt aimed at smoothing his contemplated run for mayor, the current occupant of the office, Ron Dellums, came out with a public safety initiative. He wants to recruit a few dozen more police, trying to get from 731 officers as of Feb. 2 to the authorized total of 803 – the number promised more than three years ago when the council sold voters Measure Y taxes. Except for a few days last August, Oakland has had fewer officers than when Measure Y was written.

Dellums proposes to take $7.7 million of Measure Y money that the City has not spent because it has not hired officers. About two million dollars would be spent on advertising campaigns, another three million on accelerated training academies, the rest on administration and such.

Mayor's Internet ad challenges recruits to join understaffed roster of 803

At his state of the city speech last month, the mayor set himself a goal of getting to 803 officers by the end of 2008. It will not happen. Recruits discern City Hall's basic attitude of neglect toward public safety. The city has half a police department compared with most major cities, and we need at least 1,100 police to give Oakland the routine public safety of an average American city.

The city has been unable to recruit potential officers who see that at 803 total, they will be over-stressed for years to come. Recruits see 60 new squad cars that have not gone into service since being acquired almost a year ago. They notice that much of the vehicle fleet is run down, with in-car computers that do not work half the time. They hear the mayor and councilmembers talking about a "balance" between police and social programs. In fact, though, the City shovels millions of dollars out to the programs while leaving the police department without investigators, community policing officers, dispatchers, and patrol officers.

The report submitted by the mayor for his recruiting drive contains evidence showing it is destined to fail. Analyzing all training academies from February 2005 to July 2007, it reveals that while 47 trainees had to drop out because they failed tests along the way, another 57 trainees simply walked away. Once trainees began to see how shabby City Hall is about the police department, more of them left in disgust than failed to master gun handling, arrest, and other skills. (Mayor's report to Feb. 19 council meeting, page 8)

The phony gestures of a sitting mayor (who may well leave office early) and the self-designated next mayor cry out for real criticism and genuine action. Do not expect anything from the city council. One councilmember, Jane Brunner, goes around demanding a plan from the chief of police, a plan for getting to 803 officers. The council evades its job, which is to set a real goal of at least 1,100 officers, with real proof that Oakland is determined to achieve peaceful neighborhoods. None of the councilmembers has tackled that challenge.

A botched, counterproductive gun buyback. An arm-waving recruiting frenzy destined to fail. Councilmembers nibbling at the edges in the hope they might score their own political point. Such is the leadership offered to Oakland residents.