Budget Flimflam, Public Danger

By Wayne Rowland

The relentless drumbeat of unabated and often unsolved crimes against people and property continues to cast a rather large and foreboding shadow over the quality of life for residents in Oakland. Frequent news reports of increasingly brazen criminal activity serve as daily reminders of how unsafe our streets have become – and unfortunately the situation is not getting any better. In an ominous new turn of events, many neighborhoods (such as Montclair and Rockridge) that are well known for having low crime rates, and up-and coming neighborhoods such as Temescal and others, have suddenly joined the ranks of Oakland neighborhoods besieged by crime.

There have recently been kidnappings, serial bank robberies, takeover robberies of businesses, and even the robbery of restaurant patrons while dining. Add to this the shocking daytime ambush and slaying of a well-known Oakland journalist and it's clear that things have really gotten out of hand. So it should come as no surprise to city leaders that the discomfort being felt by Oakland residents over this state of affairs is beginning to boil over from frustration to anger.

The frustration stems from the fact that while many Oakland residents find themselves doing more than their share to advance the cause of public safety, there is a general perception that the city, for its part, is not doing enough. Residents who participate in neighborhood crime prevention activities, and who have helped organize others in an effort to curtail crime, can only watch in frustration as they and their neighbors report crimes that receive little or inadequate police response. It's painfully obvious that there just aren't enough police officers to adequately serve all of Oakland's neighborhoods.

Frustration has turned into anger thanks to the knowledge that as Oakland taxpayers we are paying a steep and unwarranted price tag for police services that we are not receiving. This is a consequence of the huge disconnect between what was promised in the form of public safety under Measure Y and what has been delivered thus far.

In passing Measure Y, Oakland's Crime Prevention and Public Safety Act of 2004, voters agreed to tax themselves at $88 per parcel for homes and $60 per unit for rentals. In exchange, the city guaranteed 802 officers for the streets of Oakland, 739 of whom would be paid for by the general fund. An "additional" 63 officers would be paid for by the parcel (and parking) tax. Or, as was stated on the website of an Oakland City Council member, "This measure guarantees that the currently budgeted 739 must be funded before Measure Y is enacted." But after almost three years of Measure Y taxes, the aforementioned guarantee has proven to be hollow at best. Oakland's police force remains well below the "budgeted" 739 officers, and to date the department has gained a grand total of zero new officers.

So what happened to the 63 additional officers we were guaranteed by Measure Y? That would be a good question to ask your local councilmember. But an even better question might be: how much money has it cost us as taxpayers to arrive at a staffing increase of zero new officers?

The answer to that question can be found in a recent financial report provided by the Measure Y oversight committee. This report, which contains revenue and expense information for both police services and violence prevention programs, shows that from fiscal year 2005 through April 2007 the city has burned through approximately $8.4 million of Measure Y money designated for police services. It has done this without ever reaching the minimum required number of officers and, as a result, for our $8.4 million we have had no increase in new officers.

Of course, this money didn't spend itself. As referenced above, there is a Measure Y oversight committee responsible for monitoring the collection and expenditure of Measure Y funds. The committee holds periodic public meetings to discuss the progress of Measure Y implementation and makes recommendations to the Oakland City Council regarding expenditures. The fact that the committee consists of several individuals with relevant public safety and neighborhood crime prevention experience is a plus for Measure Y implementation. Nonetheless, there are still significant problems.

The main problem is that until the city has met a minimum police staffing requirement there really should be no collection of this tax. This is a requirement the committee has chosen to ignore. Further, the committee seems hostile to members of the public who try to bring this point to its attention. At its May 21, 2007, committee meeting for example, a resident of Oakland's Lincoln Heights neighborhood spoke, saying that she felt voters had been misled into believing that Measure Y taxes would not be collected unless the city had at least 739 officers on staff and, as there are currently far less than that, the language of the law precludes the collection of the tax. At one point she was gaveled for exceeding her two minutes of public comment. She also received an immediate rebuttal from the committee chairwoman who referenced advice the committee had received from the Oakland City Attorney's office that as long as the city appropriates enough money to hire 739 officers, it can continue to collect the tax. It doesn't have to actually hire the officers, just appropriate enough money to do so. In my opinion, it's precisely this type of budgetary flimflam that is inflaming the public in this crime-beleaguered city and causing a crisis of confidence in elected officials.

Making matters worse, during the same meeting mentioned above, there was frequent discussion amongst the committee members that if the police department did not increase staffing soon, the committee should consider reallocating some of the money intended for police protection toward more violence prevention programs. They were reinforced in this position by city staffer Ann Campbell-Washington, who suggested that the committee's obligation under the law was to spend no less than 40% of the public safety funds on violence prevention programs. Under her reading of Measure Y, the committee could, if it chose, spend more than 40% on these programs and correspondingly less on police services.

Exactly what violence are these violence prevention programs preventing? That's an entirely different subject, perhaps worthy of a column of its own. But let's just say that as we continue to pour money into Measure Y programs, one very important fact is emerging that should not be ignored by our elected officials: it's not working.

There is no part of Oakland that is safer as a result of Measure Y and many are less safe. In fact, until Oakland has a police department that is properly sized for its population, programs such as Measure Yare going to continue to frustrate and leave us, our neighborhoods and our commercial districts unnecessarily vulnerable to crime.

It's time for city officials to consider a change in direction. One important step would be to discontinue Measure Y. The city has never met the requirements to collect this tax in the first place and should just admit it. Furthermore, Measure Y is hampering the way community policing ought to work and is therefore diminishing public safety.

Another important step would be to commit to a program of properly sizing Oakland's police department, and paying for it from the general fund. As it is, the department is woefully undersized for a city of 400,000 residents and would continue as such even if Measure Y were successfully implemented. Size does matter in this instance; police presence is a powerful disincentive for all crimes and, in particular, crimes of opportunity.

Until Oakland's police department is of adequate size to comprise a visible presence in all Oakland neighborhoods, criminals will continue to victimize Oakland residents and visitors based on their calculation of the low likelihood of getting caught. We need to change that, with or without Measure Y.

Wayne Rowland is president of the Rental Housing Association of Northern Alameda County. Views are not necessarily those of RHA. Copyright © 2007 by Rental Housing. All rights reserved.

Reader's Comment

Why can't council and the police department use the former Correction Officers to staff YSD (Youth Services Division)? Plans are to take OPD officers off the street to help staff this department and for overtime. This is another way of not using staff to benefit all. The Correction Officers also checked for warrants and criminal histories. They could help in the investigations, freeing officers to go to the neighborhoods.

– Karen