Dellums' Attack on Public Safety
Tests Every Politician

Oakland mayor Ron Dellums says he would balance the City budget at the expense of public safety. Specifically, he talks about laying off 140 police from a department of a little over 800 officers.

The mayor's preposterous suggestion is a test for all the councilmembers and everyone who presumes to participate in local civic life.

It is not enough to reject Dellums' number. Any responsible person will not only condemn the very mention of destroying all public safety in Oakland. He or she will make it clear that Dellums should leave office right now.

Unfortunately, few officials are likely to be responsible. Instead, they will, to varying degrees, use the ridiculous number from the mayor as cover for smaller unacceptable cuts in the police force. It is an old political ploy, seen many times. Councilmember Quan, for example, loves to cut park rangers. First, staff proposes to eliminate all positions. The council abolishes some of them. Then Quan has the audacity to claim she "saved" the park rangers. Meanwhile, she makes sure not a penny is taken from the river of City money flowing to a private institution, Chabot observatory.

"The mayor should be given some slack" on his budget work, councilmember Jean Quan told the San Francisco Chronicle, May 4, 2009.

Officials who use Dellums as cover for attacks on public safety whine, how would you deal with the estimated $83 million deficit in the City budget? They have the nerve to task this question while they refuse to look at grants to private agencies operating social programs; while they refuse to review subsidies to developers and the whole redevelopment game; while they refuse to cull out dozens of overpaid flunkeys in and around top management.

It is all happening in the fifth most dangerous city in the country and in a city already down to only half a police force. Claims that crime is going down are phony. A recent burst of homicides has brought the total close to the number this time last year.

Oakland has an open thug culture not seen in other cities, even rough ones. Where else do drug dealers shoot at each other in broad daylight with such little regard for bystanders that they wound a group of kids ages 1, 4, and 14? Where else does a monster roam the streets, robbing and raping, finally killing four officers in one afternoon – and the mayor waffles on condemning him and all those who apologize for him?

In the neighborhoods, tensions are rising as residents warn each other of men obviously casing homes for burglary, as residents report endless vehicle smash-ins, as aggressive recyclers threaten each other and residents over waste bins on their claimed turf.

Thank you, mayor Dellums. By proposing to stand ready to cut 140 police, you have posed a test for every other official in Oakland. Have they, like you, tossed aside all decency and responsibility?

Reader Comments

A reader comments:

There is an explanation of the reason for Dellums' on-paper plan to reduce police staffing. In short, it is a way for Oakland to be eligible for federal funding which would provide additional police-department financing. I don't think it is a serious effort to reduce police staffing, despite media reaction.

That said, there is much more to the problem of dealing with violent crime in Oakland than in having a certain number of police officers working. It is all about city leadership (mayor and police chief), setting city priorities (tough decisions like park maintenance vs hiring cops), building community involvement dealing with crime, economic development in high-crime areas, coordination of policy between police and district attorney, and so forth.

Nevertheless, I agree with the goals of ORPN, appreciate the blog and its attention to the crime problem, and will send a donation.

– Mike in the Laurel district

Yes, some media and councilmembers hint that talk about laying off 140 police is a clever ploy to get a federal grant.

It is not clever. It is an attack on public safety in Oakland.

"The $67 million Oakland is seeking represents more than 6 percent of the total pot of money the federal government initially said it would dole out in the COPS Hiring Recovery Program, but officials remain optimistic about getting it – or at least a hefty portion." (Oakland Tribune, May 6, 2009)

A single city is going to get six percent of all federal money, even three percent – twenty times its proportional share? Nonsense.

Furthermore, the City will not know the outcome of the grant application until September. Meanwhile, a budget must be adopted by July 1. Also, notice the qualifier, "a hefty portion" of the money requested. It is all a setup to reduce the police force by dozens and dozens of officers.

The federal program allows a city to "rehire officers who are scheduled to be laid off on a specific future date as a result of ... budget cuts unrelated to the receipt of grant funding." (COPS Hiring Recovery Program fact sheet, March 6, 2009, emphasis added)

There are no training academies going on now. Dellums canceled the last academy on the very December 2008 morning it was set to begin, sending home recruits who had sold homes in other cities to come here.

Councilmembers and their groupies who go along with Dellums' cynical maneuver are cooperating in the destruction of Oakland as a viable city. It is becoming unviable for more and more of our 400,000 residents who leave for work in the morning filled with anxiety about whether a burglar will ransack their home in broad daylight; residents who sleep badly not knowing whether their car parked in front of the house will be smashed into during the night; residents who cry in their heart because they cannot let their children play outside after school, lest they be shot in the crossfire of drug dealers; residents who cannot walk their dog in the evening without being at risk of shot dead, like Marlon Mayorga of the Dimond district last week.