The City's Reimagining Taskforce Meeting is about to begin. Last one was introductory, so this will be first for actual business. Looks like they'll be walking members thru police budget, and bodies/agreements that affect that cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Reim…#Oakmtg
The City's been releasing data. One that's interesting, the place of residence of OPD's current 740 residents. While Oakland is single-lived in City, only 10% of OPD officers live here. Other big ones, Castro Valley, Hayward, Oakley, Tracy, Brentwood & [checks notes] SF? #oakmtg
As they begin the meeting, Loren Taylor mentions last night's late meeting [of joint bodies/Reimagining] and also notes that there are 27 participants in the Zoom meeting. #oakmtg
I will say, as a reporter, I'm not excited about yet another meeting to attend. Next year, this will include the Homelessness Commission and the "Blue Ribbon" Business Tax Taskforce,
As in the other meeting, David Muhammad of National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, holds the floor, and does so as long as he apparently wants to, without a moderator on the facilitator. #oakmtg
Muhammad is going over the Taskforce's timeline. Its ambitious. Muhammad also discusses the "advisory boards", which will focus on preparing analysis of city data and reporting back to the Taskforce. The draft recommendation would go to Council in late March. #oakmtg
Each advisory board would need to be co-chaired by a taskforce member. Muhammad suggests that members of the Taskforce also join the advisory boards. #oakmtg
Muhammad was going over the Advisory Boards, and if I heard him correctly, he said there's 130 additional people participating in those boards. #oakmtg
oops, meant to write "Oakland is the single-most-lived-in City, and obviously meant to write 740 police. I think the message got across tho #oakmtg
Hard to understand why the City had its Council/Bodies/Taskforce nexus meeting last night ahead of the Taskforce's second meeting--it guaranteed some people would not be able to attend this meeting. And performance here wouldn't be optimal. #oakmtg
The construct and population of the Advisory Boards seems to be not ready for prime time. I am hearing Taskforce members wonder how it will work, and suddenly realizing the shot clock is actually already running #oakmtg
Johnson goes over requirements for OPD budget allotments, notes, Measure Z' minimum number of officers, OPOA's MOU no layoff provision, and prohibitions on assigning sworn work to non-sworn employees, and statutory restraints. #oakmtg
Johnson goes over the breakdown on how the OPD budget is used. Largest chunk is spent on sworn police. Johnson says "its the driver of cost" #oakmtg
DC Allison goes over OPD's personnel divisions. #oakmtg
Got my thread out of order, so including a screenshot of the budget commentary that's out of the thread, good stuff if you want to understand budget process. #oakmtg
Allison refers to the Ceasefire participants as "the first and the worst". He says something like this whenever he speaks in public #oakmtg
Allison is going over the breakdown of how OPD are distributed and work they do. Over 1/3 is on patrol and only 17% in investigations. #oakmtg
This is the cash breakdown for all the disparate OPD department and activity costs
The actual number of officers per department and function, and percentage #oakmtg
The what now?
Some more breakdowns of cost per activity. They're over-broad, and hopefully taskforce will ask for further breakdowns. #oakmtg
OPD is undertaking an analysis of 911 calls thru an outside contractor, according to Chief Manheimer. She says "some will come within 30 days and some within another 30 days" #oakmtg
Some eyebrow raising OT breakdowns for the past three FY. Protests and Sideshows by far the highest single costs #oakmtg
Bas jumps into point out Oakland is highest expenditure in California, comparing to Longbeach, the next largest. But Manheimer says that officers per crime/capita is a better comparison. Probably predicts the friction that will be happening going forward on the details #Oakmtg
Theres no other way to say this, but so far, Police, Finance and the Facilitator have done most of the speaking at tonight's Reimagining meeting. #oakmtg
James Burch, Taskforce member and APTP policy director, asks for explanations for the differences between OPD and other PDs in other states that Finance and Manheimer mentioned. But Finance simply says they'll look into it and bring back data #oakmtg
Muhammad says that Cleveland has double Oakland's PD and has double Oakland's homicide, but that Oakland has higher staffing costs and a more expensive PD. Manheimer says that NYPD make a 1/3, pension about a 1/3, high school or GED only #Oakmtg
Measure Z services overview by DVP's Peter Kim and Chief Guillermo Cespedes. Cespedes says that he's done violence prevention in LA, and abroad, Carribean, Latin America. Cespedes vaguely alludes to being in another country on family matter, with corresponding bad wifi #Oakmtg
Kim says that DVP represents about 40% of Measure Z funds. Kim says that they're in the second phase of Measure Z funding, 2019-21. Third phase is 21-24, and final cycle. Measure Z sunsets in December 2024 #oakmtg
Bulk of funding goes out as grants, and DVP are the grantmaker to other orgs. 42% of the grantmaking is Gun Violence Response, thru 9 grants. Shooting/homicide response, violence interruption, life coaching, employment support #oakmtg
Kim goes thru the grantee orgs doing the work. Many familiar orgs that are also involved in other services for the City/County. ABODE runs the Covid emergency hotel shelters for ALCO, ROOTs healthcare, Tuffsheds. #oakmtg
Another area of work for DVP is Youth Diversion and Re-Entry #oakmtg
Sarai Crain, the Assistant Chief, goes thru DVP's Gender Based Violence Response. Much of it is intervention, and helping to remove individuals experiencing harm out of the situation. #oakmtg
Crain goes thru the list of providers for Gender Based Violence Response. Crain says she previously worked BAWAR before coming to the DVP. Mentions link between gender based violence and homelessness, and need that Covenant House is filling in that regard #oakmtg
Crain wraps up the four areas of DVP work with Community Healing. Targets are those experiencing violence in West, Central, Deep East. Goal is to lift up people closest to violence & tap into community wisdom that already exists, and the impact of violence to community #oakmtg
The providers for the Community Healing grant program.
Kim adds that 400k is given in community mini-grants, organizations and people who would be locked out of the contracting process at the City otherwise because of high bar. #oakmtg
Kim provides the DVP budget, he says the City provided an additional 500k from the City's general fund, which would have otherwise been a shortfall in Measure Z funding. Kim mentions "participant incentives" which are paid to life coaching participants #oakmtg
Cespedes says that DVP focuses on those who cause harm and those who have a history of being harmed, regardless of whether they are group affiliated or not #oakmtg
In response to Reygan Cunnigham's question about MACRO, Cespedes says he's excited about the MACRO implementation under DVP, calls it "proof of concept". That's the City's terminology and really suggests its nowhere near ready for city wide rollout, this is just a pilot. #oakmtg
Muhammad is assigning "homework" to Taskforce members about whether the City needs to make more presentations. Maybe its me, but this is a lot more top down than I feel it was presented during the Council meetings. #oakmtg
During public comment, Co-Chairs Taylor and Bas are assigning the time limit. But there appear to have been no public speakers, Taylor notes and laughs nervously. One public speaker finally raised their hand. But that appears to be it. #oakmtg
There was another speaker after all. Anne Jenks suggests getting the 911 call raw data, instead of just waiting for the consultant's report. There were two public speakers. #oakmtg
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Noteworthy Price-Recall linkages in these stories from EBT on a streak of Oakland residential deals. The first in December was purchased by Three Steps Properties, run by Phil Dreyfuss, recall founder, principal of Supporters of Recall Price mercurynews.com/2025/01/06/oak…
The tower was way out of Three Steps/Dreyfuss' league, he'd dabbled only in mid-rise buildings to that date, nowhere near $100s MM towers. Three Steps took out a $92 MM loan for the purchase. The purchase was from Quarterra Properties/Lennar, the owner.
Today, EBT reported on another similar purchase, this one also from previous owner Quarterra. Martin Group is purchaser. Martin Group donated $40K to Supporters of Recall Price, Dreyfuss' personal recall finance committee; Scott Osler, Martin's co-principal, donated another $9k
Now, DVP Chief Holly Joshi & Faith in Action East Bay speak out on historic violence reduction "Ceasefire is most impactful violence reduction strategy we have ever implemented in this city...this year's reduction is not a victory lap..." but gives us hope for greater reductions
OPD Chief Mitchell celebrates the 34% decline in homicides, with commensurate 33% decline in shootings, & 25% reduction in robberies [not sure about the exact number on the robberies, missed it for a minute]. He says Ceasefire has his full confidence.
Pastor Billy Dixon a founding member of CF, says he's invested in the program, living in "ground zero" in Oakland for violent crime
Carson arguing for his part, that the schedule is soon for his successor on the BOS to be a functional part of the process. "implore people to deeply consider that"
Carson said that the timing on moving on both recalls was "premature...I'm not too sure that after one year in office, an active campaign to remove people gave people the opportunity to focus on the job they were elected to do..."
Vote Update: Latter tranches of votes come in lower for Mayoral recall, but likely won't be enough. Latest batch itself 43% vs 57%. Total gap still large: on Friday was 63.8% vs 36.15%, now 61.59 vs 38.41. With 99K counted, this could be around half the votes with 70-80% turnout
Relative newcomer Rowena Brown pulled ahead of Leronne Armstrong in straight votes, way ahead in RCV. The trend of Brown getting a huge number of Wang's votes, despite Empower Oakland recommending an LA/Wang slate continues: she gets half Wang's votes, double Armstrong's share
Things are worse for Dreyfuss' bag man for the recall, Len Raphael, losing votes with each update. He was at 15.19% Friday in straight votes, now 14.92%. He actually benefits in RCV from getting a few hundred of Frank's votes, boosting his share to 16.78% Unger 83.2%
Sitting in on today's case conference where Chanin and Burris' report back to NSA will be heard. Chanin & Burris say current scandal, where Armstrong's IAD failed to hold a police officer who paid witnesses and perjured, shows the OPD should be put under more rigorous oversight.
*accountable...at today's meeting, Chanin, Burris and also the Oakland Police Commission Chair, Marsha Peterson. It will be interesting to see where she and OPC land on this, as she and others have seemed resistant to holding Armstrong accountable
I also see Mac Muir, CPRA Director. CPRA's independent investigation of IAD's faulty investigation is what led to all this...but its unclear that investigation is even available to plaintiff attorneys, Burris and Chanin, as they referred to DBG & Ali Winston's reporting instead.
At Life Enrichment, a crowd came out to show support for Carroll Fife who has been under attack by right wing groups aligned with recalls, led by Dominique Walker, "thank you for all that you do for us", listed Fife's accomplishments and help for community with homeless families.
Shereena Thomas recounting how Fife helped her through health problems and disability. "I don't know any other person who has been in the trenches...I don't know of any other Cm who has done for community as she has. The record speaks for itself and I have receipts"
"I grew up on 57th in Oakland, I've been homeless 5 times in my life...I was sleeping in my car [when covid came], I was working a temp job & I couldn't work remotely..." Fife helped pay for hotel, buy a car, & work w/Moms 4 Housing. Victim of PTSD, single mom whose son passed