I tend to avoid responding to Mr. Pine's posts about our office. From my point of view public safety results from a number of different approaches all working in conjunction. Consequently, I find Mr. Pine's implication, if not insistence, that only increased police presence will stop crime to be short sighted in comparison to a more comprehensive strategy. My boss also tells us to avoid responding to his constant stream of what seems like a fixation; however, when he says, "councilmember smiles, Dimond Peet's Store Hit" I feel compelled to answer.

Anyone who knows the Dimond area will tell you the efforts to improve the neighborhood have taken more than rhetoric, but actual hard work by the all of us. When Jean first came into office the Dimond, the corner at Lincoln and MacArthur was specifically the 4th highest crime spot in the city. Our office worked hard to close the Hillcrest Motel and then worked to help facilitate Lincoln Courts, the senior housing development now on this site. Ironically, the first time Jean encountered Mr. Pine was during his opposition to this senior housing project. We also worked in other ways to strengthen the neighborhood, including stopping library cuts and assisting in forming neighborhood alert and safety councils, including the expanded 22X NCPC. We also have worked closely with merchants and are very proud of our role attracting new businesses there.

What we are doing concretely in terms of public safety in the Dimond is to coordinate with the walking officer, Sean Hall, who has had a good impact on reducing nearby drug dealing, shop lifting, and other petty crime in the area. We also have had city trees trimmed and city lights adjusted, and we are especially excited about getting funds for the next stage of "streetscape" funding so we can improve the look and safety of the area. I personally am coordinating these efforts for our office and invite you to join us. We also will continue to work with the merchants and hope that they will organize themselves more formally in the future. After our next merchant meeting, which will take place in the next week or so, we plan to do a night walk to see what we can do to improve lighting. We fervently believe that creating a busy area where people come to shop, do business, dine, and use the park and library is a great way to develop a healthier and safer community… that is our goal.

What has worked to address public safety in New York, in Boston and throughout the United States is a careful combination of the sorts of approaches I have mentioned in the last two paragraphs coupled with traditional police work. Additionally, given the frustration in attracting and hiring more police officers, not only in Oakland, but throughout California, some of the other approaches become even more important. Thus, Home Alert, Merchant Alert, peer counseling, anti-crime training, and the like become even more essential as nearly every city in California struggles to get enough police officers. From this point, these aspects of Community Policing are not soft and feeble, but potent methods of self-protection – especially when combined with walking officers and problem solving officers that the OPD already is providing all over the city.

I do not pretend that Oakland does not have a crime problem, nor do I minimize it, but what I object to is that Mr. Pine and others adopt the stance that nothing is being done. The city is trying to recruit officers continuously, but the city is also increasing lighting, training residents, talking to at risk youth, and all the other things that must be combined with police work to increase safety, which is everyone's goal. In fact, if you carefully analyze the very crime statistics that people complain about, there actually have been improvements, such as fewer homicides, and sometimes these improvements are difficult to see, as in, for example, domestic violence. While this crime category shot up over the last reporting period, it turns out that this is a result of more awareness and more reporting, not more domestic violence per se. Jean played a major role in getting these programs that make women more confident to report the crimes and seek assistance. So a seeming jump in this crime is actually a stride forward in making many people's lives better.

What I am calling for is a more balanced and less sensational approach. Yes, there are problems, and yes we need more officers, but it is just not accurate to claim either nothing is being done or that what is being done has not had positive effects.

Richard Cowan
Chief of Staff for Councilmember Jean Quan

It doesn't matter much that councilmember Quan's chief of staff argues against a position that neither ORPN nor I have taken. It does matter that the councilmember refuses to address Oakland's public safety crisis with the priority it needs.

Quan's aide claims to support a balanced approach versus "only increased police presence." We must ask: where is the balance in Oakland? Measure Y grants for violence prevention programs go out the door like a wide open water tap. But as for the police portion of Measure Y, we have fewer police today than were authorized (739) when the council wrote Measure Y in 2004.

Oakland has half a police department compared to most major cities. It is not "balanced" to cripple the police force while tossing out a few drops of rose water. We need at least 1,100 officers in this city of 400,000 people, and any councilmember who wants to be a true public servant should give that task top priority.

No one said more police are the "only" thing we need. However, when the roof is so far gone that it leaks in fifteen different places during a rainstorm, you do not talk about buying a new sofa. You do not discuss what color carpet to get. You replace the roof!

Quan's aide echoes the current City Hall mantra that no city can hire more police when he writes of "the frustration in attracting and hiring more police officers, not only in Oakland, but throughout California." In fact, Los Angeles, having committed to adding a specific number of officers over five years, is on schedule. In the two years ended last July, Los Angeles added 330 police – on top of all the retirements and resignations normal in that huge department. Oakland can find the same number of officers in this country of 303 million people.

Unfortunately, councilmember Quan's office actually tried to deny the facts about Los Angeles. Her office issued a document claiming "Council Member Quan's office called the LAPD and was told that LAPD did not increase its force by 330 officers; rather, these are the number of officers recruited to their training program to fill vacant positions." Quan asked residents to accept this alleged phone call instead of the figures reported more than once by the Los Angeles Times.

This seems to be par for the course for councilmember Quan. Just after convincing voters to approve Measure Y, she remarked at a budget workshop that "police may be a priority, but not to give more money." She joined council colleagues in maintaining a hiring freeze on the police department for more than two years early in this decade.

Incremental efforts are fine. Yes, give the Dimond district brighter light bulbs in street lamps and trim some trees. Yes, it's nice to work with walking officer Sean Hall, although his 42 hours a week are not sufficient coverage. The commercial district needs two officers, but that gets back to the total 1,100 we need in Oakland.

Oakland councilmembers must give top priority to adequate staffing of the police department. We should also put an end to City Hall's conciliatory attitude toward the culture of disrespect that dominates our streets. Councilmember Quan's aide apparently finds these tasks distasteful or impossible. The choice is clear. At stake is whether Oakland remains the country's fourth most dangerous city or gets peaceful neighborhoods – something to ponder next time you have a tall cup of Peet's coffee.

Charles Pine