Councilmember Stumbles on Prostitution

The neighbors at 38th and Penniman Avenues in the Allendale district of Oakland had a problem with a pair of drug dealers, one of whom doubled as a pimp. Working in cooperation with a Problem Solving Officer of the Oakland Police Department, arrests were finally made.
Coincidentally, the City Council was posing as heros on the issue of prostitution. This report and commentary was posted on a neighborhood crime message board:

Subject: 38th & Penniman update; pimping; Council is part of problem

Gary Jackson and A. Bonds (latter AKA Gross, "Luther," "Junior," and "H") were charged with three and two counts, respectively, of selling drugs.

However, Bonds is out on bail and back in action. Wednesday evening he fielded two women from his stable of prostitutes. They worked 38th and Penniman Avenues as early as 7:30 p.m.

Count on councilmember Quan to move things backward, not forward. In an article in today's Chronicle (June 2, 2005) about prostitution, she says, "Many of these are young girls, only 13 or 14, who can barely walk in high heels." The claim of "many" is not defined. I haven't seen Luther running 13-year-olds at 38th and Penniman.

A Tribune story today has Quan saying Oakland has also become a hub for the international criminal sex trade. Oakland, or the Bay Area? In any case, it often has to do with a willingness to work off a bill of $30,000 for being smuggled into the United States. These women are not disrupting 38th and Penniman Ave.

In these articles Quan and the other councilmembers dare not mention the real problem – police understaffing.

For example, the arrest last week of Jackson and Bonds, the latter a pimp as well as a drug dealer, owes a lot to the OPD problem-solving officer. Well, she is out this week on personal business – and no one is covering her operations and maintaining contact with us, at this hot moment just after two key arrests. When beat 24Y had community policing over five years ago, our officer had a partner who covered for him when he was away. That was before Council imposed a hiring freeze on OPD that ended only after the council extorted Measure Y taxes from voters. When you have half a police department, you can't finish the job.

Who keeps OPD at half strength? Councilmember Quan, who insisted at a budget hearing last November that the police get no new money. Councilmember Quan, who underbudgets OPD then shouts about overtime. But she is always angling for one more social program grant...

Charles Pine
Measure Y - Stop the theft of your tax money!

A follow-up post noted:

Councilmembers should be about policy and legislative progress. ... On a major policy issue, councilmember Quan stated again and again last year that Measure Y guaranteed us 802 police officers. The council expects to collect the Measure Y taxes in 2005-06 and started collecting the parking tax surcharge last Jan. 1. So where are the 802 officers?