Police Understaffing Drives Businesses out of Oakland

Because Oakland has half a police department, uncontrolled crime is driving businesses out of Oakland. Here are two examples presented by Susan Scolnick on behalf of the Maxwell Park Crime Neighborhood Action Team. She reported these horror stories at a town hall meeting on Dec. 17, 2005.

• Mr. Richard Langford owns a land survey company at Maybelle and MacArthur Blvd. He is moving it out of Oakland by the end of this month, taking with him a $400,000 payroll, all of which went to Oakland residents. Mr. Langford is moving the business to San Ramon "for one reason, and one reason only:" lack of police response or interest in his financial losses and his problems. He has caught thieves taking his survey equipment but gets little or no response from police.
   
  
• Mr. De Leong Liu owns the gas station at the corner of Pierson and MacArthur Blvd., across the street from the entrance to Mills College. The station has been robbed over 20 times in a year and a half, once at knife point. (That's more than once a month!) Police did not respond to 99% of his 911 calls. So he doesn't call any more, and we have no crime statistic. Mr. De Leong owns three other gas stations in the Bay Area, but when he bought this one in Oakland, the insurance company cancelled his entire policy for all four stations. Mr. De Leong is overwhelmed by the problems at his intersection: abandoned cars, deteriorating Oakland Housing Authority apartments, neglect from CalTrans, and nonstop drug dealing, as well as traffic and garbage problems. The intersection is directly across the street from the well-kept property of Mills College, which hosts a middle school on its land. The school children and college students use the bus stop in the midst of this situation.

At the town hall neither the mayor nor OPD chief Tucker owned up to the fundamental reason for business flight: Oakland's police understaffing is at the crisis point. To the contrary, chief Tucker put out statistics to the effect that OPD staffing is getting better. In any case, he added, the task is not so much to get more police as to use the existing staff more effectively. Tell that to patrol officers, all of whom work mandatory overtime twice a month. Tell that to homeowners paying the Measure Y tax, who have seen the number of sworn officers fall from 734 at the time the city council wrote Measure Y in July 2004 to under 700 officers today.