It’s been two months since the Oakland Police Department laid off 80 officers and reassigned to patrol 63 others who devoted hours to helping residents solve nagging crime problems to make their communities safer.
Chief Anthony Batts has promised that the reassignment of the so-called “problem-solving officers” does not spell the end of community policing in Oakland. In fact, he vows that every member of the department will be expected to embrace as second nature a community policing philosophy that will guide their daily work and problem-solving methods.
But until that happens, the loss of personnel who until July attended monthly meetings of the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council in 57 beats around the city -- to listen, dispense advice, and find ways to solve problems -- is a major blow, many say.
To some residents, the absence of problem-solving officers pretty much spells the end of the community policing model they had come to trust.
Their direct link to the Oakland Police Department is gone, and they fear that without that connection, the community groups who have put so much effort into working with police might fade away.
Don Link, chairman of the Shattuck prevention council, likened the setup to a team approach to reducing crime. But the team will suffer when key members are missing, he said.
“Without the police, you have one party strategizing and whistling in the wind,” Link said. “Without the OPD, the meetings will just dwindle and fail.”
At a Public Safety Committee meeting last week, department brass laid out a plan to cope with the absence of the Measure Y-funded problem-solving officers. Capt. Ed Tracey said that beat officers will be tapped to fill the void. They will attend community meetings every couple of months and work with area commanders to continue to prioritize issues raised by the prevention councils. The commanders will find the resources to handle the issues and keep track of the progress. The beat assignments should happen within about 30 days, he said.
“It’s the most we can do -- and we would rather do more,” Tracey said. “The Police Department is worried about the (demise of the) NCPCs. We are making sure that doesn’t happen with these stopgap measures. ... If you don’t have a team of citizens working with police, how can we be successful?”
The problem-solving officer positions will likely be restored if Measure BB passes in November. The measure would revise Measure Y, passed by
voters in 2004, which collects about $20 million a year for police, fire and violence-prevention programs. The funds were used to help pay for the 63 problem-solving officers, but the money can’t be collected because the number of sworn officers employed by the department has fallen below 739.
Taking Root
The outcome of the election will not stop the eventual move to a departmentwide community policing model, Tracey said. A department training manual is being developed and put out for review. Still, it will be some time before every last employee is trained and the concept takes root.
“While the chief wants to get this into a department philosophy, he recognizes that the community members have adapted and really liked the
(problem-solving officer) model,” Tracey said. “Our demand for service is so high, and at the end of the day, we need time to teach them. So
while we will go with the (new philosophy) no matter what, we also want this ballot measure to pass because there will be no time for proactive work.”
Tracey said citizens have made it clear they want the problem-solving officers.
“It’s about what the citizens want, and if they say that program is making waves, we’re not here to ruin it,” he said.
That is good news to Link. The community policing program was nearly dismantled once before under Chief Richard Word, when he reorganized the department in response to budget cuts in 2002 and sent the community policing officers back out on patrol. But area lieutenants kept the program alive, Link said. One of them was Lt. Lawrence Green, who launched the first online forum to communicate and share information directly with residents.
“People were on the ropes and became really creative,” Link said. “We all have the same goals, but it requires will of the commanders of OPD to keep community policing alive.”
Right Track
Link said Batts is on the right track with his all-inclusive philosophy. The challenge is to find creative approaches to keep residents engaged until that philosophy becomes a working reality.
That will be a daunting task given the staffing cuts to the department, which is dealing with more than the 80 layoffs of July 13. It also lost 22 hires who were in the police academy, and eliminated 27 vacant positions.
Since July, 14 officers have either retired or gone out on disability leave, and Batts believes there could be many more voluntary departures
between now and Jan. 1, when another 122 officers are slated to lose their jobs if a parcel tax measure fails at the polls Nov. 2. The
department currently employs 684 sworn officers, 122 fewer than it had at this time last year, and the lowest since 1994, Batts said Tuesday.
With those numbers, many wonder, how will any officer find time to do any kind of creative problem-solving?
Sheila D’Amico, a membership coordinator for the Melrose-High Hopes prevention council, said their problem-solving officer and neighborhood services coordinator helped an apartment building owner figure out how to rid his property of drug dealers. In another case, their police contacts helped shutter an illegal after-hours cabaret being operated in the building’s garage.
“I’m not sure it will help the NCPC to have a non-dedicated (officer) involved,” D’Amico said. “When you have a dedicated person, (everyone) knows the priorities are for the beat, and they know the status of the things you reported previously. I’m not saying it can’t work, but ... “
Why Change?
As for previous suggestions that the prevention councils merge into larger groups, or perhaps meet every two months instead of monthly, neither Link nor D’Amico agrees.
“For the life of me, I understand the staffing (problem), but I can’t understand why they would change the NCPC, which is actually working,”
D’Amico said. “I don’t mind the idea of changing something and seeing if it works better, but people have worked a long time to make the NCPCs successful. I think the neighbors themselves are the ones that are holding the city together.”
Councilmember Patricia Kernighan couldn’t hide her dismay at Tuesday’s meeting. She said her constituents are asking why they should bother to come to the meetings when the police are not there.
“It’s so discouraging to see us falling back from the progress we had made,” she said. “We could all see it, the cops could see it. The citizens were able to communicate with police and when they identified a problem there were resources to do something about it.”
“It’s all collapsed. The lack of PSOs at NCPC meetings is awful,” Kernighan said. “We all debate (what is) community policing, but if you don’t have at least 800 officers it’s not going to happen. It really requires someone showing up at (the meetings).”
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