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Strategic Policy Partners Returning To Oakland For “Do-Over” of Crime Reduction Plan

Make Oakland Better Now! was getting ready to post Part Three in its series on the SPP/Wasserman report (the first two are here and here.  Then, we learned from this past weekend’s Oakland Tribune that Mr. Wasserman is returning to Oakland to finish the job that was started.  We are pleased to hear this. And in this post, we give our views on what the next steps should be for Mr. Wasserman, for SPP and for the City of Oakland.

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January 28, 2014
Uncategorized

Strategic Policy Partners’ Final Report Is Here – Now What? Part 2

The long-awaited Strategic Policy Partners’ report “Addressing Crime In Oakland – Zeroing Out Crime – A Strategy For Total Community Action” has finally been released. While our overall reaction to the report is one of disappointment, we think there may be some positive takeaways. In our first post, here, we summarized some of the report’s recommendations. In this and the next , we will discuss our concerns and suggest next steps for the city.

Violence prevention programs:

When he met with community groups, Mr. Wasserman repeatedly stated that part of his mission was to inventory all city, county and state violence prevention programs providing services to Oakland’s citizens. We supported this because while we believe programs play an important part in violence prevention, we also believe the city needs to be much more careful to ensure that its violence prevention dollars are being spent wisely. To us, inventorying the programs means identifying them, determining how much is being spent on them, assessing their effectiveness as public safety tools and whether they were effective parts of the City’s public safety efforts.

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January 21, 2014
Public Safety

Strategic Policy Partners’ Final Report Is Here – Now What?

Part 1

The long-awaited  Strategic Policy Partners’ report “Addressing Crime In Oakland – Zeroing Out Crime – A Strategy For Total Community Action” has finally been released While our overall reaction to the report is one of disappointment, we think there may be some positive takeaways. In this and the two posts that follow, we will summarize the report, discuss our concerns, and suggest next steps for the city.

How We Got Here

In January of last year, the newly sworn City Council faced one of the most important issues of the year: whether to authorize $250,000 for a contract with Strategic Policy Partners, LLC to provide consulting services to the city of Oakland. regarding public safety. MOBN! discussed the proposal here, here and here.

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January 8, 2014
Elections / Public Safety / Taxes

If You Live In The Hills, Vote YES on Measure A

Last week, Oaklanders who live in the hills received their mail-in ballots for Measure A.  This measure, which creates and funds the Oakland Wildlife Prevention District, replaces the expiring Wildfire Prevention Assessment District. For the past ten years, the WPAD has successfully provided funding for prudent fire-reduction measures in the hills-based wild lands interface.  The previous district has been supported by a parcel tax of $65, which expires at the end of this year.  With the new district, this tax will increase by $13… While we are critical of many things Oakland’s city government does, MOBN! supports this initiative.

We are concerned that the campaign against Measure A is based on half-truths, innuendo and irrelevancies.  We believe that when voters within the district know the facts, they will join us in voting to maintain the effective public safety efforts previously supported by the Assessment District, and now supported by the WPD.
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November 1, 2013
City Budget / Public Safety

City of Oakland Wants Us To Tell Them What We Think About Budget and Police – Let’s Do It!

Make Oakland Better Now! believes that the Oakland should regularly conduct scientifically valid polls of its citizens to learn what Oaklanders feel about how the police department is doing, and how the city’s budget process is meeting Oaklanders’ needs.

Valid polls typically cost about $25,000, and we believe the money would be well-spent.  We will continue to urge Oakland to conduct this type of survey.  But until it does, Oaklanders should take participate in two non-scientific surveys that will allow them to provide their views on the Oakland Police Department and the city’s budget process.  Make Oakland Better Now! urges all Oaklanders to take the 15 minutes it will take to respond to both of these surveys:
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September 20, 2013
Uncategorized

Ending Gun Violence In Oakland – Important Program This Saturday, September 21

Make Oakland Better Now! has become pretty well known  for advocating for more cops;  it is true that we believe the Oakland Police Department is critically understaffed, and the department needs to be grown to at least 925 officers.

But we know that there are other essential violence prevention elements besides a fully staffed police department.  We continue to support a properly run Operation Ceasefire (and we’ll be posting more about this very soon) and we support those programs for which the data proves a positive effect on violence reduction.
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September 16, 2013
City Budget / City Council / Mayor / Public Safety / Transparency / Accountability

City Council to Consider Adopting Budget and Amendments Tonight

Tonight, beginning sometime after 6:30pm, the Oakland City Council is expected to adopt the fiscal year 2013-2015 budget (item #9).  The importance of the budget can hardly be understated: this document will control the City’s expenditures over the next two years.  The budget is where the Council is called upon to put its money where its mouth is; more than any other document, it reflects the values and priorities of our elected leadership.

In April the Mayor submitted her budget to the City Council, which proposes $487 million in appropriations over two years.  You can find MOBN!’s discussion of the Mayor’s budget here, here, and here.

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June 27, 2013
Political Action / Public Safety

Science & Crime

At the June 20th joint Rockridge Community Planning Council/Greater Rockridge Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council meeting, Mayor Jean Quan was asked how many police she thought Oakland needs.

First, she said that it is not a matter of what we need, but what we can afford, given that California policemen cost more than East Coast policemen, and she quoted that CA officers cost $200,000 per officer vs $100,000 on the East Coast. She then stated that her goal was to return Oakland to 800 officers that we had “before the recession.”  Although the current budget only gets us to 700, she said she is confident that as the economy continues to improve Oakland will be able to afford more police in the long term.

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4 Comments
June 23, 2013
City Budget / Transparency / Accountability

Make Oakland Better Now! Looks at the Mayor’s Budget and Two Proposed Amendments – Part 3

On June 13, Make Oakland Better Now! will be present at the Oakland City Council Meeting at 6:30pm to urge the City Council to adopt the Mayor’s proposed budget with Council President Kernighan’s proposed changes.  In recent posts, we’ve been looking at budget amendments proposed by Council President Kernighan and others proposed by Council Members Brooks, Reid, and Gallo.  We encourage all Oaklanders to join us at council in urging your representatives to adopt a budget reflecting the city’s need for public safety and fiscal responsibility.

A recent resolution enacted by council has significantly increased the involvement in the budget process of the Budget Advisory Committee.  That committee met last week, and has submitted its recommendations to council here.  The highlights:

7 Comments
June 12, 2013
City Administrator / City Budget / City Council / Mayor

Make Oakland Better Now! Looks At Two Proposed Amendments to the Mayor’s Budget – Part 2

Make Oakland Better Now! will be present at the next Oakland City Council Meeting on June 13th at 6:30pm to urge the City Council to adopt the Mayor’s proposed budget with Council President Kernighan’s proposed changes.  This post is the second in a series to look at the budget amendments proposed by Council President Kernighan and those proposed by Council Members Brooks, Reid and Gallo.  More information can be found in the Oakland Tribune’s Coverage, here, and Chip Johnson’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle, here (paywall).  We encourage all Oaklanders to join us at council in urging your representatives to adopt a budget reflecting the city’s need for public safety and fiscal responsibility.

Make Oakland Better Now! was set to publish a post today that costed out the City Council President’s proposed budget amendments (we’ve been calling the proposal “APB1”) and the proposed amendments to the budget by Council Members Brooks, Reid and Gallo (“APB2”).  We had reached the conclusion that APB2 would result in a city budget out of balance by millions of dollars.

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4 Comments
June 10, 2013