On Tuesday, June 21 (tomorrow), starting at 10:30 a.m., the City Council will meet to consider so-called “Midcycle Budget Amendments” to transfer funds from previously allocated departments to new purposes.
Although you probably think that we managed to prevent defunding the Oakland Police Department this year, you might be wrong: the Council, still dominated by police haters, will consider numerous measures to weaken OPD and transfer the money to “City services that are essential to BIPOC communities.”
This post is to let you know what these cuts are, and what you can do about it. Here are the details.
The proposed budget proposes severe REDUCTIONS to OPD. Among other things, it would:
• “not restore the 5 dedicated Foot Patrols and the department’s Supplemental Walking Officer Overtime which existed prior to the pandemic.” As we all know, Foot Patrols are an essential part of Community Policing, and help reduce crime. If you’ve been in Chinatown recently, you’ve seen volunteer civilian foot patrols on the streets, made necessary because of the shortage of actual police. Even the City Council admits that “walking officers can help build trust and provide a sense of safety in communities…”. Demand that the City Council restore these Foot Patrols.
• “freeze” nine FTE (full-time equivalent) officers assigned to the Traffic Enforcement Unit. This means that the Unit will have “fewer police officers available to mitigate dangerous vehicular behavior.” According to the Mayor’s office, “in [the] half last year, there have been dozens of deaths and severe injuries on our streets, and people are afraid to walk and bike.” Demand that the Council unfreeze and restore these important positions!
• “freeze” 48 (!!) FTE officers in OPD’s Tactical Teams. These officers respond to armed caravans, illegal sideshows and other violent crimes. If these positions are eliminated, it will endanger the safety of all of us, and will result in even longer wait times for 911 calls to be answered. Demand that the Council unfreeze these 48 positions!
•“not appropriate any overtime in OPD’s budget for emergency responses to crowd management requests.” Such crowd management is vitally needed for sideshows and for the riots that for years have disrupted downtown, especially after dark, resulting in vandalism, widespread theft and smashed shop windows. Demand that the City Council provide appropriate overtime pay for crowd management!
• defund OPD’s Fiscal and Human Resources divisions. While the four FTE positions the Council proposes to freeze do not have a direct impact on policing, they would have a negative impact on OPD’s ability to attract and retain officers, at a time when the Department is desperate to build up its force.
Most of the cuts the Council will consider have what is called “Equity Provisions.” For example, the “Equity Provision” on freezing those 48 FTE jobs on Tactical Teams reads thus: “Given current budget constraints and the high cost of policing, and a limited number of available officers, this budget reduction helps preserves other City services that are essential to BIPOC communities, their safety, and well-being.”
In other words, the City Council, in its obsession with race and social justice as opposed to public safety, continues to argue that cutting the police will contribute to “the safety and well-being” of people of color. Precisely how this works, however, is never explained. Nor can the City Council explain away the fact that people of color themselves want more police! But for Carroll Fife, Rebecca Kaplan, Nikki Bas and Sheng Thao, what we, the people, actually want doesn’t matter; we, the people, are too stupid to make such important decisions as police funding! Better to leave it to the “experts” on the City Council to decide what’s best for us, in the Nanny State that Oakland has become.
HOW TO COMMENT AT TOMORROW’S CITY COUNCIL MEETING:
The meeting begins at 10:30 a.m. and is on Zoom. The Zoom link is here.
Public comment is generally allowed at the beginning of these meetings. You’ll find complete instructions on how to comment here.
If you Zoom in to the meeting, use the “raise hand” function if you’d like to comment.
Please comment! Thank you very much!
Steve Heimoff