The Oakland Police are confused?

The Oakland Police are confused.

That is according to themselves, as represented by their own police officers association.

In their open letter to the public they said many things. Many of them had some serious assumptions including about how “past protests have turned into riots” but the worst assumption of all came in one single line:

Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?

This is supposing that there is a skirmish line and that the police are on only one side of it. Here we may be getting closer to the root of the problem. Have they totally lost perspective on the fact that protesting is one of our basic rights and that the police are supposed to protect us doing it? If they have lost sight of that, if they were ever not confused on this part of their job, then let’s point it out to them right now. The Oakland Police are our highest paid public workers and the Oakland Police Department is our most expensive City Hall expense outside of Redevelopment. We pay a lot, trust a lot more, license them to carry guns in public in our name and we should expect better.

Oakland has been ridiculed on national television for attacking a campsite with a full on riot squad. In our city where we have a weekly tailgate party at the Raider’s games that displays all the problems Occupy Oakland is accused of. The Daily Show made some excellent jokes at our expense and many people stood in city hall and made it clear that all the problems shown in the Plaza were in the plaza before the protest, at any Raider’s game and are in the neighborhoods on any day. The comparison with our football tailgaters is a just one. We expect the police to deal with the people getting out of hand. We expect them to protect all the others, no matter how bizarre they may be. We expect the police to treat people as gently and respectfully as possible. We expect them to expect the obvious and be proactive. We do not allow them to violently overreact to fans who have only committed minor infractions and are not a danger to others. As professional police officers we expect them to understand this fine line and make it work. They should know the difference, see the difference and act accordingly. That is their job. They are supposed to protect us doing what is legal.

The police officer’s union has some legitimate complaints with management. We all should have some complaints with both the political management and the police management of these situations.

Start with the mayor.

I am among the people who are amazed at what she allowed to happen. If you are going to order the plaza cleared, well you should at least be here to lead that, supervise that and take responsibility for that. I have a lot of respect for Ms. Quan, but this was a lack of leadership and very poor judgment. She should know better about handling protests and she should know better about how our local police do things. She does know better. She should tell us why she did what she did. It is about the only thing that will save her from a recall at this point.

But do not forget the City Administrator.

Her description to the special session of Council on Thursday Nov. 4^th was full display of a CYA bureaucrat doing the CYA. Like so many in our US public life, she gave us a college 5 part essay, poorly written, on how she had done everything the best that could be done and how it was all the protester’s fault. She had a smug litany of excuses, the dog ate my lunch, the dog bit the journalist, there was nothing to be done but shoot the dog… never did we hear a word of regret or responsibly for the disastrous results of having ordered the police to disperse the camp by force.

Missing, like a gaping broken window on Broadway, is the fact that they did not try to communicate WITH the protesters; they only wanted to dictate TO them. At one point she sounded like a cynical lawyer stretching a point saying that City memos, were on the internet, which was good enough because so many of those young people are tech savvy. At no point did they ever offer to dialog with the protestors really. It was all about permits and compliance, nothing to do with earning some trust from the people in the square. It was about her representative getting permission to speak and not about having the courage to stand out there and demand to be heard.

That is what I did, and if I can do it, anybody could have done it.

There were problems with the first camp. Those problems were being addressed and addressed quickly. They were also being played up and distorted in the press version of things. That is the version that the city administrator has now adopted.

If people like me, and I am nobody important, could demand to speak to the General Assembly and insist on dialog with the City and advocate non violence, why not the City officials?

That they were not welcome is a coward’s excuse and that they were not welcome after sending a riot squad against a campsite is their own damn fault.

Thanks to her antics trust will be harder to earn for the next city administrator who will have to live down her legacy. Ms. Quan should have taken her resignation the moment she stepped off the plane back from Washington.

But why stop at the administrator’s office, there is the mayor’s staff to talk about.

At 5 PM the night before the morning raid on the campsite some chosen, invited, community leaders were called together to speak with Quan staffers. These are the same staffers who never returned my calls and who did not so much as acknowledge the offer of Green Party folk to do whatever was necessary to prevent the violence that ending up taking place.

Do you think they were talking with these community members to ask them to mediate, moderate, mitigate or anything like that? NO, they were being TOLD what was going to happen and that was that. The administration had made up its mind. The city was going straight to police action. Some demonstrators had burned one of their memos in effigy and they could not think of any other way to get over the communication impasse.

In their limited way they really thought that they had tried everything and now they were just ready to offer some 3 rate homeless service and were calling the police to clear the place out. Ms Quan should offer them new work challenges outside of City Hall.

Middle management at City Hall needs a wider view of what it means to “try everything”.
The results of how they dealt with the encampment made this clear.

And now for the Police Management.

Between the bad leadership at the Mayor’s office, and the officer throwing a stun grenade is the police brass. To start with our Chief Jorden sang a solo in the Not-My-Fault chorus along with some props of his war trophies. Absent was a lot of explaining to do. The first thing I would like to know is why after 2 weeks of Occupy Oakland they had not done the groundwork of having some credibility with the protestors?

Of all the things they could have done to clear the plaza of tents, a frontal assault was exactly the wrong one to choose. Who came up with this plan? What was the urgent hurry? Why was nothing else tried? How did we go from a poorly written memo from the administration (without a deadline in it) to a frontal assault?

But my biggest question is: What could be more important to the Oakland Police right now than public support? Even if the protesters did not cooperate, there were better ways to stop illegal camping or to get a protest to move to somewhere else. None of those methods were even tried. Instead we are millions of dollars in expenses down the road with our city’s reputation tarnished again and the Oakland Police’s relationship with the community even further damaged.

As a person who has had the job of carrying a gun and having to do what others have decided needs to be done, I still have a lot of sympathy for the police, but also some serious concerns about the quality of police work in Oakland.

This is the same police force that:

• · Lost 4 of its own members to the same man and failed to take that suspect alive
• · HAS used teargas with Raider’s fans
• · Fired cork bullets at an anit-Iraq war protest
• · Failed to advert violence and protect the peaceful part of the Oscar Grant protests.
• · Continues to be under court supervision stemming from the Rider’s case

If we had a police commission I would advocate some hearings on quality of their work.
And I think police management needs to be reviewed on how they came to make these choices.

We always knew that the police are going to beat a bunch of protesters in a fight.
Why go out and prove it unless you only view the protest as a skirmish line.

As the police union points out, this is not the first time we have had a protest like Occupy Oakland General Strike and it is not the first time some elements came with intent to throw bricks. Everybody seemed to know it would happen. What we did not see was a police force ready to act in an intelligent, prepared way. It felt more like the excuse that they were waiting for. If City Council holds hearings on the police response, then they should ask some hard questions:

1. Why they could not be more proactive to cut the violent protesters off quickly?

2. Why they did they not help the protesters who were trying to stop the violence?

3. Why did they resort to teargas and mass arrests again and basically attack both groups?

We need to ask ourselves if we are not all across some kind of “skirmish line”.

Have we already tried social programs to fight crime?

Been there, done that. On social programs for at risk youth? NOT.

A couple weeks back I had coffee with a person I respect a lot, who is in favor of the new gang injunction, the curfew and all that kind of stuff. He truly believed that when it comes to social programs that would get to the roots of the problems “we have tried all that”. I did not argue because I wanted to hear him out, but I think he could not be more wrong.

Where we are and where we have been all my life, is in a vicious circle of mercilessness. Tough on crime, war on drugs, three strikes, holding the families accountable, zero tolerance, yeah, we know the catch words. For almost two generations now, we, as a culture, have been focused on blame and punishment and for those same two generations we have done little to nothing to promote a healthy society or economy, especially when it comes to providing real opportunity and support for urban poor of color. Our overcrowded prisons devoid of rehabilitation and our failed parole system are two of many monuments to the disaster that this kind of thinking provides. Our crime rates, especially our violent crime rates, as much as TEN TIMES the rate of Canada or Japan, should be reason for us all to leave our arrogance aside and be willing to learn and listen.

We have had the politics of the hard line and we now live with the results that it produced.

So why this belief that we have really tried it the other way? Why would anyone believe that we have tried the social programs and now we need to get “hard nosed” and “practical” and “give the police the tools that they need”?

Maybe it is because many elected officials have been saying that they have been successfully providing social services. So have many non-profits.

If they say it, can it be true? Well how American would it be to make a token effort, to do a publicity stunt, to change the image and the name, but not really change much of everything important?

I think we are constantly being told that the social programs are happening.
But I do not believe that we have given the social solutions an honest try.

There is the little, local picture. We have Measure Y, right? Some judge is doing restorative justice, good? There are all these programs for youth, right? Don’t we have public housing? The county has a public health system?

Only sort of. When it really comes to delivering services, there is a serious devil in the details. To quote the East Bay Express talking about the local version of the Cease Fire program:

The Oakland call-ins were run through the city's Department of Human Services and in conjunction with the Measure Y violence prevention initiative. According to a final progress report for the Cal-GRIP grant, it cost $828,217, half in city funds, half in state Cal-GRIP money. However, participation in the program was disappointing. Instead of the target of 216 participants, just 103 people took part in the call-ins, with 34 people receiving education services and 56 participants gaining unsubsidized employment.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/oaklands-other-gang-program/Content?oid=3006398&cb=796ead685a4e0d5f015caa14402c636a&sort=desc#readerComments (this article spurred me to write this opinion, a shorter version is a comment on it)

Now, we have over 400 shootings a year in Oakland, about a quarter of the victims die. Just count the numbers from this one grant that helped at most 200 people and ask yourself: Does it measure up? Considering the number of people in the justice system, it is only a scratch of the surface. At $800K there are some other questions one might ask too. Programs like this get held up close to the cameras, while almost all of the offenders in Oakland are going through the revolving door prisons off screen.

That is not the only place we hold up programs as great hopes and not the statistics that show how little effect we are having because of the sheer numbers.

Want to look at restorative justice? All we have are a few small programs around the edge and a lot of talk. Go to the schools and you will find some very valid alternatives to school discipline and expulsions. Go down to the court house and you will see young people going through prosecution mills on their way to jail. The few attempts to get people into some other kind of track are almost volunteer, non profit led and minimal when compared to the number of people involved.

But be assured that our liberal politicians and our nonprofit executive directors need to make themselves look good to keep getting votes and contributions. So a lot is made of these efforts that are symbolic at best. We get a lot of talk about what kind of an example they give. Examples that the mainstream is not following, unfortunately. In fact the main stream resists very well thank you.

Even when Governor Govenator tried to make reforms at the California Department of Corrections he got stabbed in the back by the prison guard unions and others who are part of the “corrections industry”. They even changed the name to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations. A very good former warden was given the top job and was undercut every day of her tenure.

Ask anyone who has been recently released if they got rehabilitation in the CDCR. Anyone.

In the big picture of national and state politics we have never really ended the Reagan years. With mandatory sentencing, posturing, the re-introduction of the death penalty, the emphasis on blame and punishment, the serious turn away from rehabilitation and all the other counterproductive tendencies in our society, how could a humane, healthy, healing, social solidarity thrive? How could programs to help the poor survive? Well, they did not. The war on poverty got dropped in favor of a war on drugs and a war on the poor. Not only has our society found ways to consider those of us most in need “undeserving” it has also found a way to blame the poor for their poverty.

Every social program that the Democrats (and more than a few Republicans) have waived across our TV screens is an exception to the rule. Reality is that our urban cores have become prisons of poverty and our prisons have become over crowed, racially segregate dudgeons. We have more people in prison as a percentage of our population than any other advanced nation. We have more of our people in poverty too. As of last month the count was one American in six under the poverty line. We have as many infant deaths in Oakland as we do murders and we wonder why we have high crime?

In the last couple years we have had some visitors from other states and nations who have taken a look at our attempts at restorative justice, community policing and wrap around social services.

One was diplomatic and said that: “In order to make this policy work we had the full support of the community, the city council, the police, the [prosecutor’s office] and the social services” Doing so they were able to make a serious dent in crime, keeping offenders in the community and practicing some form of restitution, providing support to families in crisis and freeing up the police to focus on the hard core criminals for whom the heavy hand is appropriate.

We in Oakland can do little about the big state and national picture.
And it does us no good to pretend that we are doing better than we really are.

But we could practice the kind of unity our visitor described and do a better job with what we have.

Our Mayor Spoke

Monday night I attended Mayor Ron Dellums State of the City address in council chambers. It needs to be stated that Mr. Dellums has a great voice, a lot of charisma, and an almost regal presence. In fact, when I listen to Ron Dellums speak, I am captivated for that moment in time—a true “Dellumsist.” It sounds so good.
I have always liked this guy. I voted for him for congress and still agree with much of his thinking. However, if I really believed that Ron and the Council were blazing the trail he so ably described, I would support him and vote for the Councilwoman. Sadly, this is not the case.

I agree heart and soul with much of what Ron outlined during his address. On crime he spoke of programs that are music to my ears—programs incidentally that have been recommended for years. One that sparked my applause is a program that ensures youth offenders are enrolled in programs before they get released.
And of course no State of the City speech is compete without running down the former Bush Administration for wasting our wealth in Iraq or advocating support for national health insurance—things we all can agree on. Sure, he wants various components of the city to work well together; don't we all? And, he advocates long term cooperation between the powers that be in Oakland for the mutual benefit of all. Who would disagree with this idea? The problem is that it is too long overdue. Rounding out his list of things upon which we can all agree, Ron supports the schools and their local control, and he advocates grassroots citizen participation in local government. When it comes to policies, I am very pro Ron Dellums. The problem has been in the execution of his policies.

Now, while Ron continues to advocate more citizen input at City Hall, he stated—in an odd twist—that we now have it. Huh? If I get the reasoning right, and no I have not looked over a transcript, he considers having accepted a large number of recommendations from his citizen advisory committees (clusters), and filling most of the citizen oversight board positions, a significantly higher degree of citizen control. Ron kept repeating that we the residents are now inside City Hall and we’re making the elected officials listen to us; that we the community are part of the process; and that we the community have been empowered and should not give up that power. Really?

I almost felt embarrassment for him. For here was the Ron Dellums that some of us older activists had for years considered the inspirational progressive voice when it came to Vietnam, Central America, South Africa, Iraq, and much more related to foreign policy. This is the same Ron Dellums who took on critical domestic issues such as basic civil rights, labor rights, and national health care. For these things, Ron Dellums commands and deserves the respect and good will of the progressive community—including me.

However, what troubles me: does he really think that Oakland has undergone some kind of citizen integration with local government? What results do we have to show for such an assertion? Frankly, it sounds like exaggeration and wishful thinking. I do share the wish and think there is much more to do before we get there.

The other main point Mr. Dellums kept repeating was that Oakland is a model city. During his speech he kept returning to this same theme. He claimed that certain ideas were first proposed by Oakland or that Oakland is in the lead in the region, state, nation and even internationally. Yes, we are in the lead in the submission of grant proposals on these issues. If Ron's numbers are correct, this is great. On the other hand, I somehow doubt that Oakland is the only place that told the Obama administration that we wanted to use short term stimulus funds to enhance the City’s long term fiscal position—with which I agree. It is the responsible way to use these funds.
The Model City claim is a stretch at best and distracted attention from the great fund raising job they are doing. What is important, however, is not if we are a model, but if we are doing the right thing well. According to Ron we are doing quite well. According to me we could be doing a lot better—and we should.

The laundry list of accomplishments continued—over and over for three times.

Along with the re-runs of greatest hits, Mr. Dellums then gave us a historical overview. The tone was something I was taught to understand as "triumphal-ism," as he listed all the great things done so far. Well, what do we expect from a Mayor? If I get the job, remind me to keep my speeches humble and less self congratulatory. Dellums did list a few of the things I have mentioned to people that he has done well, such as the Business Assistance Center and the Mayor's office outreach to offenders. He told us about the funding we have received, but did not give a total or breakdown. I wish he would have, as it is a main accomplishment of his administration.

Mr. Dellums also said that some things may not be as good as they look, such as stating the crime rate went down 10%. It probably has, as crime is down across much of the country. Consider, though, that there is a big difference between the actual crime rate and the reported crime rate. As the guy on the street who feels the difference—or lack of difference—in the areas I go, we are still not as safe as we need to be. Nonetheless, a reduction in crime is welcome, and if certain Dellums polices are shown to be the cause, we should pay attention.
Continuing, Mr. Dellums implied that employment has increased. I’ll pass here to look at the transcript before saying much more. Has employment in Oakland increased during this depression? And, if so, who has it increased for? This seems counter to the huge jump in foreclosures? Or, was he just talking about a certain sector, say the public sector, or developers? Whatever he was trying to say, he did not talk about the foreclosure crisis that we see daily in our neighborhoods.

Throughout Mr. Dellums repetitious speech, he appeared to be reading, even halting on occasion, from a script using language that sounded as if it was lifted directly from the grants they have been writing. The list included some small items such as Christmas Presents for the poor. Sometimes his wonderful voice did not even stop on the periods. Other times he interrupted his droning presentation, perking up on subjects he was most passionate about. It was at these times the Dellums we all love came out, shone brightly, and was in strong form, such as when he advocated for national healthcare.

Listening to Dellums list, I feel there are about 15 items that a Mayoral candidate should go on campaign with. Not a political election campaign, but a public mobilization campaign. This is the kind of thing that inspired me to run for mayor in the first place. I'd love to take our parolee recidivism program and advocate for it in every corner of the city, including churches, community meetings, and business groups. I’d like to do the same with re-instituting and building up our full service—or Beacon and Healthy Start—school environments. As an active community member the Mayor's office should have been selling me these ideas a long time ago. This is my view of what the job entails.

Eventually, though, the discourse was just too long, much like this blog, and people started to leave. By coincidence, I was sitting with a group of Spanish speaking truck drivers who had come to applaud Ron for getting them extra funding for truck exhaust filters to meet the new air pollution regulations at the Port. Yet, when their moment came to cheer, only four were still there, most had left including the guy with the banner and the rest on the bench next to me.
BTW, if I do get the Mayor’s job, please remind me to keep speeches short and use them to sum up reports, not repeat them.

As someone who has never been to a State of the City event, I had some other questions besides why the speech was so long and repetitive. Such as, where was the rest of City Council? Quan, Bruener, and Kaplan had front row seats. Our Auditor, School Commissioner, City Administrator, police and fire chiefs were obvious, but not the city attorney nor the other five members of council. I think I saw the director of CEDA and the City Clerk. So where were the other five members of Council and the City Attorney, among others? Hey, if I could make it, why not them?

Let me guess. Mondays don't work for them? Or, maybe they watched on streaming video? Did they avoid the limelight and sit in the back incognito? Or, did I just miss them?

At the end there were lots of thanks and praise for just about everyone from Barbara Lee, Sandre Swanson, Loni Hancock, and Barbra Boxer, to Dianne Feinstein and the Council members present. Mr. Dellums wife Cindy got lots of thanks; as did Rebecca Kaplan who he called his "spiritual adviser." For the Council members present, the praise was lavish. For those not present, not so much. Why? Could someone with more familiarity with this ceremony please tell us why?

At the beginning and end of his address, our Mayor made it clear that he does not think Oakland has the resources it needs to confront its challenges. Mr. Dellums solution is to fill the gap with Public-Private Partnerships, grants, such as those from the Recovery Act, and philanthropy. It is clear that some outside fundraising may be necessary. What is not clear is the “legacy costs”—the “strings attached”—to the citizens of Oakland, and future generations, in the form of “partnerships” that favor “private” interest more than “public” interest. Protecting public interest first, while seeking additional forms of funding, will hopefully provide some relief so that we can establish a realistic long-term budget process that will sustain us in good times and bad.

As for the notion of Oakland as a Model City, I think two things:
One, let's make sure we search for good ideas that others have started and found successful; and,
Two, we should concentrate on getting things done well first and let others decide for themselves if we are a model city.

For excerpts of the show, check out these clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSpDvT0VBt8&feature=player_embedded#

Parking?

Of all the problems that Oakland has, now we have a parking crisis?

What does one say? This parking crisis is one of our own making. It is hard to stay respectful and polite when our members of city council do something so short sighted.

It is not just the 50 cents an hour; it is not just the extra hours until 8 PM; it is not just the higher ticket prices. It is the feeling that “gotchya” and anything-goes-for-a-buck is the way they feel. That is what gets most under the skin.

They sometimes call us shoppers, sometimes call us residents, some time call us taxpayers, but the sure do not treat us like citizens. They treat us like someone to milk because the get away with it.

Most of our council did not run in a contested race to get their job. All but one of the council members represents a district that has nothing to do with where the people of Oakland live, except to make sure that some of those who live in the hills live in each district. But how do they get so out of touch with what it is like to live and work here?

A friend was telling me yesterday that a customer who got a ticket while in her café came back into the café and told her that she will never come back again. The café owner is in no way responsible for Oakland parking policies, but the anger and frustration of the client was very understandable. We who run businesses in Oakland get to hear how angry the citizens who get caught in the trap feel.

Parking tickets were never a very friendly way to raise funds. The way Oakland does it is something of a trap. It is set up to make it hard on the driver and increase the opportunities to ticket rather than collect parking fees.

When fees and tickets are as aggressive as ours have become, well people notice and they do not care much about the explanations. No one likes to get tricked and cheated. To get one of these tickets is to feel robbed and violated. A 75$ surcharge for a cup of coffee is reason enough to not come to Oakland in the first place. If you live in Oakland and have gotten into your car, $75 is reason enough to drive out of Oakland to a place you can park your car without running the gauntlet. Somewhere like Emeryville, Berkeley or San Leandro for example.

We know this “gotchya” feeling already. Oakland council found it in their hearts to stick it to landlords for damaged sidewalks and then do it again if there is a lawsuit. Is that different from how the credit card companies do their best to send bills out as late as possible and up your interested rate for a few hours past due? Newer home and business owners get to pay higher taxes than the old big money under Prop 13 tax “reform”. Yeah we all know the sound of “gotchya”

Now Oakland has made parking your car in our city have that same sound.