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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Council Approves Dellums' Plan

By Dan

The City Council approved Mayor Ron Dellums' proposal to use $7.7 million to recruit and train more police officers late Tuesday, as Oakland aims to beef up its public safety efforts to confront crime, the Oakland Tribune reported today.

The council voted shortly after 11 p.m. after a lengthy debate over where, exactly, the money would come from and how the Police Department would train so many new officers at once.

Dellums had called on the council to dip into a roughly $17 million pot of money from the city's 2004 public safety ballot measure, or Measure Y, to fund the programs.

Councilmembers eventually approved the package by consensus, but only after directing city staff to report to the City Council's public safety committee on a monthly basis on whether the officers recruited and trained with the $7.7 million actually end up doing the type of police work outlined in Measure Y.

Councilmembers also expressed alarm that the Police Department's plan to nearly triple the number of officers assigned to field training duties once new officers come on board could draw policing power away from other units, including traffic, investigation and crime-reduction teams.

The council's discussion came after Ron Dellums made a rare appearance in council chambers to urge the passage of the proposal. Dellums set the 803 goal in his State of the City address in January. There are about 75 vacancies in the Police Department and the department loses five or six officers a month.


Posted at 08:43 AM | Permalink

Reader Comments:
Mar 6, 2008 12:06 am
 Posted by  Wendy Snyder

I have lived in Oakland on and off for ten years and I have seen the way in which black people have been pushed out of Oakland through racial profiling and inflated housing prices (Jerry Brown's 10K). I feel that the current mayor, who many put forward as a progressive, has just touted the same line on crime. He is addressing an economic problem with a military solution. As Huey P. Newton said, "The police are an occupying army in the black community." In 2008, the situation is no different. Where is the money for economic development on the scale of Rockridge and Montclair?
I invite people to attend a meeting to discuss positive solutions for Oakland:
Monday, March 17th, 7pm
Economic Justice, Not Police Containment in Oakland
Humanist Hall, 390 - 27th St., Oakland
uhurureparations@yahoo.com,
(510) 625-1106

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