New Lawsuit Targets Police Understaffing and
Poverty Pimp Greed

The Oakland resident who prevailed against the City in a lawsuit over the use of Measure Y tax proceeds has filed a second action against the City.

Marleen Sacks documents deliberate police understaffing while the City continues to collect the Measure Y tax, which by law requires minimum budgeting for officers.

The lawsuit also targets grants to so-called violence prevention programs like Youth UpRising in violation of competitive bidding requirements.

As Sacks explains, "The City failed to budget for or conduct any police academies since the end of 2008. Attrition of approximately four officers per month has resulted in police staffing dropping to approximately 770 officers. ... Failing to budget for academies means that the City failed to appropriate the necessary funding required by Measure Y, and therefore collection of the tax was illegal." (Press release, March 18, 2010)

When Measure Y was on the ballot in 2004, councilmember Jean Quan insisted it "brings the total number of police to 802." In all but a few months of the five years that Measure Y has been in effect, the City has had fewer than 802 officers. The City's game plan is: collect the money but use it for political pork, not officers. Sacks already won one lawsuit over the matter. She hoped the City would "engage in meaningful settlement discussions, and honor the commitments of Measure Y." In the face of City refusal to remedy the situation, Sacks has begun a second lawsuit on new or newly discovered violations.

The City also hands out Measure Y grants for social programs. Youth UpRising, for example, gets a guaranteed $300,000 a year in a five-year deal – with no obligation to deliver any service in return. If the City wants actual counseling and other programs, the agency demands and receives additional grants.

Instead of revisiting the grant at a time of budget reductions, service cuts, City layoffs and employee furloughs, Youth UpRising has grabbed more.

In 2008 Youth UpRising took in almost $5 million in grants from Oakland, the County, and foundations – but it spent only $3 million, tucking a $1.8 million profit into bank accounts. (Form 990, fiscal year ended June 30, 2008)

Executive director Olis Simmons paid herself $178,000 in 2008, nearly the same as the mayor of the whole city.

She also doled out $230,000 in grants to 29 other agencies, building a network of political obligation. There is no public deliberation or oversight of these grants.

For example, Simmons handed $25,109 to the Destiny Arts Center during the year ended June 30, 2008. In March 2008 Daryell Barker, a so-called dance instructor at Destiny Arts paid with Youth UpRising money, was apprehended for sodomizing an 11-year old girl. He was also found to be in illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun in the Sycamore Street house where he brought the girl. (Oakland Tribune, March 13, 2008)

The money spent by Youth UpRising on all its operations works out to about $10,000 a day. That sum pays an exorbitant salary to the poverty pimp who runs it, fails to screen "instructors" who work with young girls, builds a network of agencies living on hidden grants from public funds, and glorifies gutter rappers by welcoming them as so-called career counselors.

While Marleen Sacks pursues remedies in court, winning judgments affecting about $80 million, councilmembers like Quan have still not got the message. Oakland residents want basic services for the taxes they pay, beginning with:

• Enough police so that Oakland does not rank as the fourth most dangerous city the country

• Maintenance of streets, sewers, and parks;

• Libraries open and staffed with librarians and aides, not paper-pushing executive flunkeys for the library director.

Is that so hard to understand? When politicians are in league with poverty pimps, apparently so.