This League of Women Voters video gives two views on the proposed parcel tax for the City of Oakland Called Measure NN. The basic argument is that this pays for much needed more police officers.
The measure on the ballot reads:
To provide more police services to neighborhoods and businesses for the purpose of preventing crime and enhancing resources for investigation of crimes, shall the City of Oakland authorize a parcel tax to fund the cost of (1) adding a total of 105 police officers and 75 police services technicians; (2) a crime data management system for crime analysis; and (3) mandatory independent annual audits and evaluations with performance standards?
Comments
The Measure proposes to add 105 new officers and 75 technicians, and it would raise the parcel tax by $106-$266 per household.
The Oakland Police Department is in constant restructuring and management turmoil, plus its stance towards The City is mostly uncooperative and adversarial. City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who opposes the tax measure, agrees the city needs to hire more police officers, but says the city lacks the management structure - across the board - to use the additional officers effectively. The tax revenue from Measure NN would be wasted on a police force that is badly managed and ineffective.
There is no coherent plan to organize and use the additional officers called for in NN, it is not even clear the department would be able to hire and train the new personnel. The department is and is still trying to meet its hiring obligations from Measure Y, which was passed in 2004 and has raised parcel taxes until 2014. OPD has spent 1.5 Million on advertising for new officers, has some of the highest starting salaries in the state, and there are still lots of open slots for new officers. OPD has a poor retention rate: nearly half of new recruits fail or dropout of the academy, and many more leave the force in the first few years. There is already a plan to add more officers, it just isn't being carried out properly.
Oakland's police do not have much public faith or trust. In recent years there have been numerous instances of corruption and brutality. The "Riders" - some of the force's most experienced and regarded officers planted evidence, beat and intimidated over a hundred plaintiffs, who won a suit against the OPD in 2004. The United Nations Human Rights Commission criticized the Oakland Police after they beat protesters, shot them with wooden bullets and rammed them with the cruisers at the Port of Oakland. So far this year the Oakland Police have shot and killed 5 people, as many as in all of 2007. The Police Department needs to change the attitude and integrity of its officers before asking to expand the organization.
Measure NN is not a good plan for improving the police force or making the city safer. It will raise taxes significantly and dump the money into a corrupt police force. The department can do better with the resources it has, including those from Measure Y. And our city will be safer when police stop beating and shooting the people they are sworn to protect.