Violating Measure Y to Eliminate Park Rangers

City officials propose to eliminate the Park Ranger unit by illegally assigning community police officers to patrol parks. The double blow to public safety violates Measure Y, passed by voters in 2004.

Park Rangers make the rounds of the city's 150 parks and recreation areas. We had 21 rangers in 2000, but the City has cut several positions nearly every budget cycle. Now, instead of keeping the three remaining rangers who put in tremendous overtime, the City wants to abolish the Park Ranger unit forever, according to the budget proposed by mayor Dellums' city administrator Dan Lindheim.

City officials say they will assign the 57 community police officers to "perform individual park visits ... to the smaller neighborhood parks. The larger parks located in the hills would receive combined visits." (Additional Budget Information for May 13, 2009 council session, p. 18)

Deputy police chief David Kozicki said these officers would share checking, locking and unlocking park gates with staff from the Office of Parks and Recreation. (Montclarion, May 29, 2009)

Measure Y pays for most community police officers. Park patrol is not in the Y list of approved uses for its taxes. The City proposal also violates the May 17, 2005 city council resolution on community policing: "Community Police Officers shall focus their efforts on problem solving and quality of life improvement on their community policing beat, and shall not be routinely reassigned to 911 patrol or other non-community policing duties." (Council resolution 79235, sec. 7.2)

Furthermore, the proposal violates a provision requiring: "The Police Department will consult the (Community Policing Advisory) Board before implementing policy, operational or organizational changes that will affect the functioning and operation of Community Policing." (Sec. 5.7, emphasis added)

The law governing community policing matters little to councilmember Jean Quan. As residents expressed discontent at the elimination of the park ranger unit, Quan, a week into the controversy, threw the illegal change back in their faces: "I am especially interested in integrating Problem Solving Officers into the overall work of monitoring our parks. I expect to have meetings to talk about safety in in the larger parks that involve both rangers and neighborhood based Problem Solving Officers." (Post to Montclair email list, June 4, 2009)

The City proposes to add to the workload of community police officers who work with neighborhood crime prevention councils, but there is no way these officers can take on what park rangers do. Park patrol has its own lore. Rangers know the risky times and places as well as the rules that apply on park grounds. It is ridiculous to ask that community police officers develop a whole new area of expertise for a task that is incidental to their primary responsibility.

The Ranger scheme exemplifies the City's leaderless thrashing about in the face of a budget crisis. Park rangers are paid out of the general fund, which is in deep deficit. City officials are saying, let's take Measure Y money mandated for community police officers to paper over our destruction of the park ranger unit.

Meanwhile, mayor Dellums has gambled most of his budget fix on hope of a federal grant to pay for 140 police officers, promising to lay off that many officers if a grant is not awarded by September. The maneuver will almost surely result in a reduction of dozens of police from the current level of 806 officers – which is only half a police force compared with most major cities.

The budget crunch is real. It needs a broad, tough look at big issues:

• The general fund is deprived of a huge and growing flow of tax revenues because the city council has put about half of Oakland into redevelopment districts. Major changes are needed here to put service maintenance ahead of developer giveaways, especially when Oakland is as blighted today as it was when redevelopment districts started several decades ago.

• The City refuses to negotiate seriously with the unions that represent City employees, even though the unions, apparently more aware of impending collapse than City officials, are begging to work something out.

• The City has left untouched the terms of grant and contract dollars handed out by the tens of millions. If City residents suffer service cutbacks and if City employees sacrifice, why aren't negotiations underway for contributions to a solution from private agencies receiving grants, businesses enjoying City franchises, and firms holding City contracts?

Park rangers earn less per hour than regular police officers. They have three simple demands:

1. Keep the Joaquin Miller Park Ranger Station open. This is the key to efficient use of ranger time that minimizes the chance of an out-of-control bonfire in the hills.

2. Continue funding the rangers in the next budget cycle. The very existence of the Park Ranger unit is at stake. City officials are simply using the budget crunch to go for their long-term goal of abolishing the unit.

3. Move the rangers back to the Office of Parks and Recreation. The unit is currently under the police department, whose managers see the rangers as a problem rather than a resource, as somehow not right because they wear green rather than blue uniforms, even though they are fully trained, sworn officers.

   See also SaveTheRangers.org.

The park ranger issue lifts a rock and shines a bright light on bugs scurrying for darkness. It is about park safety; it is about the integrity of Measure Y and legal use of parcel tax revenues; and it is about the City's abject failure to respond with intelligence and leadership to a budget crunch.

Most of the Oakland hills are represented, if you can call it that, by councilmember Jean Quan. She repeatedly claims that she "saved" the park rangers in past budget cycles, although she actually joined in the personnel cuts. Quan was also the lead campaigner for Measure Y and then an apologist for collecting the new tax – while police staffing remained below the promised 802 officers for nearly four years.

Contact Quan and your own councilmembers to let them know that violation of Measure Y while abolishing the park ranger unit is exactly the wrong way to do a tough but fair budget.

City Goes for Abolition in Fact But Not in Name

City Hall continued its drive to abolish the park rangers by staging a phony retreat from formal elimination of the unit. However, the latest proposal would:

• abandon park ranger patrol of central Oakland parks, including Lake Merritt, Dimond Park, and Joaquin Miller Park;

• split up the ranger unit, distributing individual rangers to Eastmont station and the downtown police headquarters;

• eliminate park ranger shifts on weekends (the busiest days in the parks!) and Mondays; and

• take away the mountain bikes, four-wheel drive vehicles, and off-road motorcycles used by the rangers;

The revised proposal still includes illegal assignment of park patrol duties to community police officers. In defense of this change a police department official told a city council budget hearing that, for example, Joaquin Miller Park takes up most of community police beat 22Y and the community police officer spends most of his time in Joaquin Miller Park already.

In fact, the park is about one-fourth of the acreage of beat 22Y. As for crimes, according to statistics provided by Friends of Oakland Rangers, the March-to-May period recorded more than 100 crimes in beat 22Y outside and away from the park but only three crimes in the park and six adjacent to the park. Is the community police officer spending most of his time in the park?

For an example of what it means, consider this report: on Wed., June 3, before 4 p.m. a stolen car with bullet holes in the windshield crashed into Dimond Park, right by the lower play structure. The suspects took off through the park, leaving the car running. OPD dispatched the call after it sat there half an hour. Dimond Park is in the central city area, where park rangers will be forbidden to respond.

Falsehoods, violation of Measure Y and community police law, and elimination of the Park Ranger unit not in name but in fact are unacceptable. See above for real solutions to the City's budget crunch, three demands to save the rangers, and a link to register your protest with city councilmembers.