The Difference in Community Leaders

There are community leaders, and then there are community "leaders."

As outgoing Oakland mayor Jerry Brown ramps up his campaign to become attorney general, the state's top law enforcement official, he planted an article of self-praise in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 14, 2005.

Brown said, "We have more police coming in, and we have better deployment of officers."

Actually, the City had a net loss of 21 police in 2005. For every candidate hired and trained to be an officer, an officer on the force quit or retired, and an additional 21 police left the department. The City has half a police department in comparison with most major cities, and that won't change for years to come, given the complacency of the mayor and city council.

As for better deployment of officers, police chief Wayne Tucker, hired by Brown, has brought morale in the department to a ten-year low. Tucker did it with mandatory overtime, elimination of specific beat assignments, abolition of the Beat Health unit, re-assignment of community policing officers, reduction of walking officers, and other cutbacks.

Perhaps upside-down rhetoric is to be expected from a politician. However, the Chronicle reporter also talked to two community leaders.

Jacquee Castain, an East Oakland homeowner since 1964, said drug dealers still plied their trade in broad daylight along well-traveled Macarthur Boulevard in her neighborhood, where there have been two homicides in the past two months. "He said we were going to get community policing, and we haven't got that yet," she said.

Indeed, Brown and the councilmembers sold Measure Y, with its parcel and parking lot taxes, under the banner of community policing. The measure requires the City to maintain 739 police first and then add 63 more officers with the Measure Y taxes, for a total of 802 police.

The City is a hundred officers below that promised level of staffing and will not reach it for years to come, if ever.

The other quoted "leader" is Don Link, chair of the Community Policing Advisory Board. He told the reporter that "he was confident the Police Department would meet its goals." Any look at the numbers shows this statement to be false.

Link went on, "It seems every other day you're reading in the paper about a murder in Oakland. It doesn't imperil the average resident, but it does damage the perception of safety and the reputation of the Police Department, not to mention creating havoc in the lives of the families affected."

Link does not think homicides count for much, nor, it seems, did he discuss the crimes that do imperil Oakland residents – the robberies and burglaries, for example. He did not mention that of the hundreds of cities in the nation, Oakland is number six for vehicle thefts. He did not mention Oakland's unique infamy for its caravans of punks who stage sideshows. He did not bring up the unreported violations that make life miserable for people, such as the endless stream of "boom cars" blaring their stereos.

There is a difference beween Castain and Link. Castain is independent of City Hall. She represents her neighborhood. Her power comes from the grass roots, not as a gift from on high.

As for Link, when the Measure Y campaign was on, he invited two aides of councilmembers to a neighborhood meeting, let them both talk in favor of the measure, and called it a "debate" on Measure Y. By that standard you could also say that President Bush listens to citizens at his scripted "town hall" meetings.

And how does Don Link hold his CPAB post? He is an appointee of the mayor.