District 2 City Council Debate on June 4th, 7pm.
We have more than a mayor's race in Oakland this November. City Council District 2, 4 and 6 seats are also up for election, and the District 2 seat is vacant…
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June 3, 2014
Safe Oakland Speaker Series
Only 6 Days Until Part I of the SafeOakland Speaker Series featuring Connie Rice of L.A.’s Advancement Project. Sunday, June 08, 4p-6p @ Impact Hub Oakland – 2323 Broadway…
June 3, 2014
Ten Strategies to Make Oakland Better: (3) Contract for a Resource Allocation Study for OPD
Ten Strategies to Make Oakland Better
Strategy Three: Contract for a Resource Allocation Study for the Oakland Police Department
Make Oakland Better Now! was established to advocate for public safety, public works, government transparency, accountability and budget Reform. Often, however, we are recognized simply as advocates for increasing the size of the Police Department. While we stand by our position that Oakland desperately needs 925 sworn officers, much more is needed to make Oakland the city its residents want and deserve. This is the third installment in our ten part series on steps Oakland can and should take to make this a better, safer and more sustainable city. For our third strategy, we urge the city to take the steps necessary to make a fact-based determination of how many police officers the city needs.
Many Oaklanders believe the Oakland Police Department is understaffed. A May 7 Survey USA Poll sponsored by KPIX-TV shows 77% agreeing that the City of Oakland has “not enough officers.” Mayor Quan and her election challengers Bryan Parker, Courtney Ruby, Joe Tuman, Libby Schaaf and Dan Siegel have all advocated for increasing the size of the police department, proposing goals of anywhere from 700 to 925 sworn officers. Meanwhile, OPD recently reported sworn staffing of 652, thirty-seven fewer officers than the city employed in July, 2010 after laying off 80 officers!
May 13, 2014
Public Safety Mayoral Candidate Debate Protocol
Make Oakland Better Now! and MGO are expecting more than 200 people at the mayoral candidate public safety debate on Thursday, April 3, 2014 at 6:30 p.m. at Temple Sinai. See the original announcement here, and RSVP here. We have notified all of the participating candidates of the protocol and ground rules, and here is what we have told them:
Dear Mayoral Candidates:
Thanks to all of you for agreeing to participate in the MGO / MOBN! Mayoral Candidate Public Safety Debate, which as we have advised, will take place on Thursday, April 3 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Temple Sinai. We look forward to the contributions each of you make toward the public dialog about what it takes to make Oakland safer.
Our debate committee, journalist panelists and moderator have met, and agreed on the following protocol and ground rules:
March 27, 2014
Plaintiffs’ Counsel From the NSA Responds To MOBN Post
Last month, Make Oakland Better Now! published board member Paula Hawthorn’s analysis of the latest report by monitor Robert Warshaw, observing that Warshaw continued to find Oakland and its police department out of compliance with the NSA for acts and omissions not covered by the Court’s order. As one example, Ms. Hawthorn observed that the monitor was citing officers’ failure to activate their video cameras, cameras that didn’t exist when the NSA was issued by the Federal Court.
Attorney Jim Chanin, who with John Burris represents the plaintiffs, requested an opportunity to respond, and we agreed. His views follow:
March 5, 2014
The Negotiated Settlement Agreement, Two Years And Millions Of Dollars Later
MOBN! Board member Paula Hawthorn checks in with her review of the latest Monitor’s report.
Two years ago I wrote this about the Negotiated Settlement Agreement:
I have reviewed the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth (current) Quarterly Reports of the Independent Monitor. … In the four reports that I reviewed, there were six tasks that OPD is always in “partial compliance”: tasks 5, 20, 24, 34, 41 and 45. They were in partial compliance, I maintain that they will remain in partial compliance in future reports, and thus OPD will end up in receivership.
In fact, we did wind up in “receivership light” with a Compliance Director (in addition to the Independent Monitor assigned to monitor the NSA) who is tasked with bringing OPD into compliance with the NSA. The Monitor is Robert S. Warshaw, the Compliance Director Thomas C. Frazier. Frazier gets an annual salary of $270,000 and Warshaw has a two year, $1.78 million contract. As our Compliance Director, Frazier directs that money be spent to bring OPD into compliance with the NSA. Frazier’s Remedial Action Plan Budget Addendum calls for $3,605,000 to be spent on the police department itself.. So the combined cost of the NSA monitor & compliance director for the last year is $1,160.000 plus Frazier’s $3.65M in ordered City spending.
And what do we have to show for this? How closer is OPD to being in compliance with the NSA after this amount of time & money? Surprise! No Closer!
February 10, 2014
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.
January 28, 2014
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.
January 21, 2014
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.
(more…)
September 16, 2013