Are we ready for a successful consultation?

Are we ready for a successful consultation?  

Now that we have Chief stop-and-frisk Bratten on the Oakland payroll as a consultant, are we going to have a valuable consultation?  

I have no idea how our city leaders think our unity problem gets any better with Bratten on board.  In the real Oakland, not the consultant Oakland, we have big social issues between our police and our residents.  Our Civilian Police Review Board, of 1977, still does not have the authority it needs to guide, oversee and discipline our police officers akin to a real Police Commission.  The amount of money that our police officers are paid does not go down well with most of us and the fact that so very few of them live in Oakland does not go down well with any of us.  We have been in a decade of non compliance in the court case stemming from a group of police officers that got caught using illegal strong arm tactics.  More than one organization in town tracks police abuse.  Our City Attorney Office helps us pay out police abuse settlement cases to the tune of more dollars than San Francisco and San Jose combined. 

Into this mix our city decides to hire the poster boy for stop and frisk.  As if the Gang Injunctions did not cause enough division we had to do this too?  Do we really think that a 7 to 1 vote in council reflects a 7 to 1 consensus for this consultation subcontract with Bratten?  Council President Patricia Kernighan may want to call all those who do not agree with her some kind of radical fringe, but that fringe includes many of the same people who put together our official crime policy: Measure Y.  

This whole thing makes me feel that community consensus is not something Council values much.  

I do not know what kind of group-think our new council has gotten itself into in making this decision and I wonder what we will hear from them after we have paid Bratten’s bill and received his wisdom.  

The lone dissenting voice, Council Member Desley Brookes of District 6, made it very clear on KPFA that the prime contract, of which the Bratten sub contract is but a part, was already in trouble on its deliverables.  

Why do we need this consultation?  After all this time we still need to decide what our crime policy is?  What exactly is the wisdom we do not have that these enlightened beings will bestow upon us?  Our Police Chief Jordan, our Police Captain Torribio, our expensive City Administrator Sanatana do not know what their policies are?  They need the advice of this guy from New York to run the Oakland Police?  If that is the case, we should not be hiring consultants, we should be hiring replacements.  

This city went through a very big public process to end up with Measure Y.  We looked around for advice at the time.  And we have never implemented the program, just like we have never implemented a Citizen Police Review Board with any teeth.  Measure Y is our policy and a well thought out policy it is.  It is not particularly original, but it is based on solid research.  Our policy of enforcement, prevention and diversion is supported by the super majority required to pass a ballot measure.  

Maybe our consultant will tell us why we do not really implement our own plan?  Measure Y has become more of a funding source for non-profits than any policy that our City, Police and with cooperation from the county the DA follow.  We talk restorative justice.  We walk lock-em-up with a few programs on the side.  Every day we send young people to start a life of crime and every day we do not help people getting out of prison end their life of crime.  Every day.  

The State of California has consultants too.  For the longest time I have been telling folk about the Little Hoover Commission Report on Parole ( http://www.lhc.ca.gov/studies/172/report172.html ).  This 2003 report tells us what is wrong with our California Parole system and what a local community can do about it.  SUPPOSEDLY it is our policy to implement the recommendations of this report.  Maybe Mr. Bratten can take a look at that while he is on staff?  All the problems described in the report are still problems with some realignment to Alameda County.  The main issue of not having a place in the community remain a main issue.  The problem of sending folk back to jail on parole violations instead of dealing with any new crimes, is also still a problem.   The only update to this report was to say that we still have not done anything about it.  The first line of that report reads:  “California’s parole system is a billion-dollar failure.”  That failure delivers broken souls to the streets of Oakland, week in, week out. 

I am not sure what a consultant can do about political leadership that does not lead and does not act on the recommendations of its own state government.  

Maybe it is like the consultant that was hired to fix the bike path plan for the bike path that is supposed to run in front of my house.  First we spent some years on a plan.  Oooops, oh, we forgot to run this plan past the bus company who has stops running down the main drag.  Sooooo, we hire a consultant, more dollars, more years, and voila, we have a new plan.  Over a million dollars to paint a white stripe down our street and destroy our community garden in the traffic islands.  That was the new plan.  When released, that plan caused an uproar, mostly for the gardens and another plan is in the works.  I ride my bike on the side streets where it is safer, and probably a better spot for a bike lane, and do not bet my life that the drivers who do not stop for me crossing the street on foot will somehow not drive over the white stripe of a bike lane.  I do not know how many years this planning process, consultants and all, has been going on, but it is over a dozen.  Still no bike lane.  

As if reading my mind, I get an email telling me “Visit Oakland (Oakland's Convention & Visitor Bureau) is working to develop a strategic plan for Oakland as a travel destination.” And to get this great strategic plan in place:  “Visit Oakland has retained a top-flight research firm, Young Strategies Inc., to conduct a comprehensive destination analysis and lead a strategic planning process.”  

If I could make stories like this up, my fiction would sell.  

How many years has the Visitor’s Bureau existed?  Only now are we developing a plan?  And what is step one?  An on-line survey with Survey Monkey https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OAKLAND-CITY .  The only two visitors I know of coming to Oakland are my brother in Oregon and Chief Bratten.  Both work related trips.  

Meanwhile on my street that still has no bike path, the mugging rate has spiked.  We held a meeting at the Mac and Cheese place and the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) got good attendance this month.  My own neighborhood watch group had become dormant, so I invited some neighbors over to see if reviving it could help.  During the meeting there was a mugging at Shafter and 41^st.  After helping the victim, one more couple decided to come to the Neighborhood Watch meeting.  

All over Oakland there are lots of neighbors willing to do something.  We fill the NCPC’s and we volunteer at the myriad organizations that reach out to youth at risk.  

In Oakland most of the public agrees with the consensus that prevention, diversion and enforcement go together and many of us are willing to do something about it.  We do not need a consultant for that.  

Give NOW!

With the end of the year my email and postal mail boxes have been filled with the message:

GIVE NOW!

Greenpeace, the ACLU, and Amnesty International were the best known brands.  I think it was over two dozen other brands also writing me to tell me about what a great opportunity I have to do all kinds of things to change the world with my money.  Even the ones from groups that I do support and give money to, sound like cheap hucksterism. 

Frankly, I am stunned nowadays if I get an email from any group about anything without the word DONATE on a button. 

When you get a message that asks you to vote, protest or just be informed and is not a lead pitch for a donation, READ IT; it is from somebody real. 

We Americans are great employees.  We do lots of things, including immoral things, for those who give us a salary.  We are also able to put out a lot of self serving doubletalk in defense of those who pay us.  “Americans will do close to anything for money” is not news. 

I do donate to stuff.  But Non profit corporations and their “advocacy” is not the same as activism.  Doing what you are paid to do and saying what will make your sale is not the same as having a social conscious. 

Have we become so stupid that we think that only MONEY makes people work?  Were we paid to join Occupy?  Was Martin Luther King motivated by profits in the civil rights “industry”? Is there a Neighborhood Watch market?  We spend to much of our lives looking at advertizing produced by people who ARE only in it for the money. 

Let’s not drink the sociopathic money-is-the-only-motivator Cool-Aide. 

That is another blog I should write about the corporate side of non profit corporations.

Right now I want people to GIVE NOW. 

First, I want us to GIVE A DAMN. 

What our government does matters.  It is important.  It affects you, your families, and your communities.  We have a pretty bad government and a bad system of government.  Not caring or thinking that you can just deal with number one in your corner somewhere only makes it worse and makes you powerless when your turn comes. 

Then I suggest that we all TAKE.

We should TAKE THE TIME to know what the hell is going on around us.  City government is complicated and a lot of money goes in a circle without getting spent on us.  Take a few moments read the reviews, look at the numbers, talk to those you respect and trust.

And finally I ask that we all BE HERE NOW.

Look around and see who is doing what and ask yourself uncomfortable questions:
•    What do you think is right?
•    Who do you trust?
•    What can be done about it? 

Give a damn, take time to learn what the hell is going on and then do something real about it such as vote or go see something for yourself.  That is my New Years message.  That was my last year’s message and that is what I would suggest we do before we decide to open our wallets and spend any money to build a better world.  Otherwise, how do you know what you are buying?

The high price of Oakland Policing

We need to face the fact that the Oakland Police Department is a failure. 
We fail to stop crime. We fail to prevent crime. We fail to get our youth away from crime. 
And we fail to have the respect, trust and support of enough of the people. 

We also fail to deal with normal pubic events, such as Occupy and Raider’s games.  

Our police department has successfully resisted efforts to reform it, to hold it accountable and they have successfully resisted implementing public policy in community policing and restorative justice.  

Take a look at this 1974 video of our Oakland Police “reforming” themselves with the help of an early computer, a training program and an early congressman Ron Dellums and ask yourself if that reform effort reflects the Oakland Police that we know now a generation later. 
http://youtu.be/JAw-u_HGO_w

 

Before spending another dime on more police, let’s look at all the costs and do some housekeeping.

Top of the list is some kind of civilian oversight of the police with the power to terminate the employment of police officers who have abused members of the public. The idea that we do not have this should have us all upset, but we get used to a lot of disappointments in Oakland government and accept bad situations when we should not.  

Quickly following this, and totally related, we need to stop the millions in lawsuit payouts for police misconduct.  We seem to be paying out more than San Jose and San Francisco.  

The biggest lawsuit, the Riders Case, needs to be resolved.  We cannot put any resources towards our police only have them in danger of being controlled by a federal judge.  

My suggestion for these accountability problems is a Police Commission. 
Other cities have them and we should too. 

Not to have police accountability costs us in the most expensive way possible because we have lost community trust and support.  

There are also dollar costs that need to be brought down ASAP because a million dollars a year is too much to pay for 4-5 police officers.  

The cost of overtime needs to be stopped.  A freeze on overtime except for those who actually patrol and are at the bottom of the pay scale would be a good place to start.  High salary office staff should not be on overtime.  That is the most expensive overtime possible.  And that kind of overtime distorts the calculation of pension costs later.  

The costs of having 90 officers (out of 630?) out on workers comp needs to be dealt with.  Do we have a plague?  How do we cut that number down or get people who are not coming back to work on the roles? 

The cost of having an armed, badge wearing officer do paper work, take finger prints, visit the families of truant students is ridiculously high and their effectiveness is radically low.  The civilian side of the police department is too small and not allowed to do enough.  

The cost of the pension program needs to be brought into something manageable.  It is not now.  We are building up a bill for pensions and retiree health care that could bankrupt the city.  

The cost of having officers ramp up their last years on the job so that they can collect the highest pension possible is a big part of why pension costs are so unmanageable.  

The cost of the top paid officers needs to be capped.  The whole wage scale needs to be reviewed.  

The cost of the “academy’ system to train new officers needs an audit.  3 million to train 40 cops? 

Today I read that they want to outsource police services and rent police from other areas? 
What will that cost? 

And the cost of employing people who will not live in our city should be brought into account. That costs us in trust, in support and in flat dollars.  Why are we hiring people who do not want to live here?  

Do some of this housekeeping and then the cost of hiring more officers would not be the multimillion dollar hamster wheel that it is now and we could expand staff with the support of the public and enough funds to hire them.  

But first, the public needs to feel that our police are held up to a high ethical standard and that they work for us and not the other way around.  If we do not feel that the police serve us, why pay the cost?

A simple commitment to respect the will of the people.

Jim Dexter asked me to make clear that I support the voter's intent when passing the various measures such as Q and Y in my drive for budget reform.

I told him that he was just asking me to put myself on record for something he knew full well I considered an ethical value.  For me this basic respect for the public's will went without saying, but I had made the political mistake of not having said it.  

He also told me that he would support me if I would make this public statement.  I think he already does.  Truth be told, we are of like mind on quite a number of things.  

When the public has made a choice as clear and legally clean as Measure Q to support our libraries (for example) it has become the marching orders of every public servant, elected or otherwise. To not follow those marching orders is a breach of public trust.

So what is the problem? 

The measures were voted on, they are law, and the provisions in those measures are guiding how those funds are being spent. Right?

Wrong.

There are many aspects of Measure Y and Measure Q that are not being followed.

 

In all the time I have been working on community policing, I have never heard of the required number of Problem Solving Officers that Measure Y requires being assigned.  Maybe I missed something.  Are all those fire stations open? Guess I messed a lot. 

And are our libraries open 6 days a week as per Measure Q?  Not the one in my area and not the one where my girlfriend works.  What others are open 6 days other than the main branch?  Who said that not fulfilling that 6 day requirement is OK?  Our City Attorney?

Part of the reason we need to go through this convoluted measure process is because the voters do not trust the politicians to really spend the funds as they promised.  It looks to me like we cannot trust city spending to be in line with the clear legal language of ballot measures either. Talk about a vicious circle of distrust! 

When residents tell me that they would gladly spend more in taxes if they felt it would really go to what was intended, this is what they mean by it not happening.

One could move on to other measures and one could go on and on about this.

If elected to council, I will consider going on and on about ballot measure compliance part of my job.

I will need the public’s help to keep an eye on it all.   

And thank you Jim for reminding me to point out the obvious. 

What would a better budget look like?

What would a better budget look like?

In truth, I do not know because a better budget will be the result of political compromise. 

The first thing we need for a better budget in Oakland is some chance of stability. 
To get that stability, we need serious, stable public support.
We need more than a squeak-by majority behind it. 

·         4 unpopular members of council and a deal with the mayor is not public support for a budget. 

·         A budget report that does not show the full amount of all the public debts and pension obligations, does not develop public trust.  

·         Manipulating the public and threatening to close 14 of 18 libraries and having our council meet in two closed door groups of four is not a budget process that we should be proud of. 

·         Dropping 80 police officers to get a compromise on pensions is not good relations with our public employees.  

This list could go on and on citing examples from almost all of the public departments and all kinds of disappointment with our elected official.  I’ll stop here with a question:  Do you think the public at large trusts the way our public officials are managing our public finances?  

All of these events are very hard on our public employees, many of whom have their jobs threatened every two years or less and word day to day in an atmosphere of hand to mouth, crisis to crisis thinking on the part of a management who gets little more than two years of planning offered to them.   

Jane Brunner, who is leaving the job that I want, (Council Member District 1) told the Piedmont Avenue Neighborhood Improvement League that this last budget was really a great step forward.  She felt that for the first time they were getting some kind of real information and numbers from city staff.  Jane has held this seat for 16 years or something like that.  I feel that if she feels that we have had too little information for the past fourteen years on our budget, then the budget process is more flawed than it looks and it looks bad.

What I see as a process leading to a better budget would be public approval, by a wide majority, of that new budget process in a referendum.  I would submit any reformed budget to the people for a vote.  Maybe what we need is some kind of budget convention, sort of like a charter convention or constitutional convention and then require that it pass with the same majority needed to authorize taxes.  If we are going to transform prior tax measures, we will need that majority to be legal.  

So given that, here are some ideas I would like to see discussed and addressed in a total budget review.

To start with, we need to raise taxes in a fairer and more predictable way.  I do not like the endless fees and the over complicated measures authorizing parcel taxes.  We could drop the parcel taxes and reform our business taxes, sales taxes and service fees in a way that cover’s our real costs.  I am open to all of it as long as it is fair, keeps residents in their homes and lets local business, especially small business, survive securely.  In a separate posting, I will stick my neck out and propose a different business tax.  My basic principal is that people making money should pay taxes accordingly and people who are not making money here should have some kind of security.  

Measures Y, Q and others like them need to be brought back into the fold as part of basic way we do business.  I believe in the dedicated funding commitments to community policing and our libraries, but not by this process.  A guaranteed percentage of general fund spending would probably be better.  A non-rider rule would also help so that such things as community policing would not be stuck paying 4 million dollars to the fire department (this is the current Measure Y).  

I have no idea why we do not spend our money AFTER we raise it.  What if we spent in 2012 based on what we took in during 2011 instead of what we hope to take in during 2013?  Somehow I fear that I am in danger of being taken to the border and expelled from the United States for saying such a thing, but it would make planning a “hecka” easier.  

And how about the business cycle?  It happens.  Capitalism is the system we live under in this country.  We have been having big downturns on a regular basis since well before the panic of 1893 and they should not be a cause for us to be unprepared or panic in 2012.  I make some jokes during forums that it is sad that the Green Party, the one party that puts people before profit, is the one brining up this very basic fact about our economy.  It is sad and a bit odd.  The “rainy day fund” that some discuss and a few have implemented can be the way we do this.   The definition of the growth/recession can be fixed to performance markers and the transition from good times to bad times, and the release of “rainy day” funds can be set by a pre determined formula at the beginning of each spending year.  

 During periods of high growth and heavier investment and more real-estate transactions is when we should NOT spend on upgrading our buildings, purchasing new resources, special public works or big projects.  During those times we should restrict government to basic services.  We can learn from recent history and never ever allow any of the real-estate transfer taxes to anything but the rainy day fund.  In good times, we should keep our libraries, parks, civic centers, programs running, pay our debts, and put sidewalk expansion, paving roads, development projects and such on hold.   

And we should spend when times are bad.  That is when those public projects will cost the least to do and when an injection of shorter term public jobs would do the most good.  It is also when it is least expensive to borrow money.  

I see it as an economic shock absorber.  Sort of a rainy day fund with a works project administration ready to start up on those rainy days.  

Now we can, and I will, work on these points one by one and see what kind of improvements we can get piece by piece.  That is the way we work on such issues now and the result is usually incomplete reforms that do not accomplish much but make day to day government even more complicated and paralyzed.

So I will also advocate that Budget Convention to give us a chance to work on a new budget and new budget process taking the big picture into account.

The alternative is to continue the current budget and budget process with our next budget crisis on schedule for 2013.  

Or?  Are there some other proposals?  

Don