Public Safety Demand Hits Mayoral Candidates

"By many accounts, crime is the No. 1 issue facing Oakland." That's how the San Francisco Chronicle began a review of mayor's race. The growing protests against lawlessness in Oakland have made public safety an issue that cannot be ignored.

But, as candidates De La Fuente, Dellums, and Nadel showed in their statements to the reporter, none of them is addressing the issue with any credibility.

DE LA FUENTE said, "I will support the police in doing their job and demand that they be aggressive in protecting Oakland citizens." Tough talk, but not very clear. Is he putting more pressure on already overworked police? Or is he challenging the terms of the so-called Rider's settlement? Because of the settlement, scrutiny for possible police misconduct has become so extreme, so nit-picking, and so punitive that officers are reluctant to enforce the law. The threat of discipline for anything more than Miss Manners behavior is so high that police refer to the department's Crime Reduction Teams as Career Reduction Teams. De La Fuente did not address any of these realities.

De La Fuente also persisted with the resolution he and councilmember Brunner wrote, blaming the police department itself unless it adds more than 100 police and meets an 802-officer threshold within the next ten months. This widely criticized resolution provides no resources that could achieve its demand. It is a crude attempt by the city council to deflect responsibility from itself. The council's hiring freeze of nearly three years and its swindle with Measure Y have brought Oakland's police understaffing to the point of crisis.

CANDIDATE DELLUMS had nothing new to offer. He wants the police department to set up a family and youth unit dedicated to finding alternatives to incarceration. In the absence of a firm, realistic commitment to increasing the size of the police department, Dellums is demanding less police work by the police.

"It's not an either-or," Dellums said. "Oakland residents have said they want to feel safe and for the police to do their job, and we must provide that. They also recognize there are other factors and want to spend more on preventive issues."

Actually, fewer Oakland residents every day want to spend still more on prevention programs. How much burden does Dellums expect homeowners to bear? Parole supervision could certainly be tightened; that's a county duty. Prisons could get serious about rehabilitation; that's a state duty.

THIRD-PLACE CANDIDATE NADEL, however, is still promoting an endless list of City programs, each of which would necessarily be tiny. Somehow, Oakland residents are supposed to tax themselves to finance a range of miracle programs dealing with what Nadel called the roots of crime: poverty, unemployment and poor parenting.

For the full newspaper report, see http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/26/BAG7HHEU1J1.DTL

Public safety is indeed the number one demand of Oakland residents. It pushed onto the political stage because increasing numbers of people have spoken out, gotten organized, and targeted the number one need: bringing Oakland's half a police department to effective strength, at least 1,100 sworn officers.

The next important event is the March 7 "Enough Is Enough!" rally. Let's be heard! Then we should show that we will not accept the budget swindles embodied in parcel taxes, by defeating the May-June mail-in vote on a landscape and lighting assessment. Sorry, candidates, we are not shopping at your store.