We’ve been live here on our website for about a month now, and things are really picking up. As of this morning, we have 121 contacts—people who have signed up to follow us. The number is going up every day. Partly that’s because of word-of-mouth: someone tells her friend, who tells his friend, and so on. Partly it’s because our Coalition has been discovered by the media. Jack was on T.V., on the local news the other night, and he’s also been quoted in the newspapers. I myself have been quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News.
Journalists are interested in us, I believe, because we run counter to the narrative that Oakland is a hotbed of “defund-the-police” types. We started CBO because we firmly believed that is untrue. What is true is that the defunders, as well as homeless advocates, have very loud voices in Oakland. They tend to shout out City Council meetings and to picket the Mayor’s house. But my colleagues and I have never believed they constitute the majority in Oakland. We believe that most citizens, including our Black neighbors, want a strong, effective and fair police force; indeed, that’s what the polls say.
We also believe that the majority of Oaklanders—maybe the vast majority—wants the city to do a better job managing the encampments that dominate our city. It would not be difficult for Oakland to mandate areas where tents are prohibited. In fact, that’s just what the city did last October, in their Encampment Management Policy, which passed unanimously in the City Council with strong support from the mayor. The policy was supposed to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021, but it never did. Why not? The city has been less than candid over their reasons, but we think the homeless advocates once again cowed them into silence and retreat.
I’d like to thank everyone who has signed up with us. What can you do for the common cause? Call your City Council member and demand the immediate implementation of the EMP. Tell him or her you support the Oakland Police Department and do not wish to see its budget cut by 50%, as some “reformers” demand. We, at the Coalition, believe that some reforms are called for, and we’ll shortly publish our recommendations. But Oakland is in the midst of an historic crime wave, and it’s insane for people to be calling for massive cuts to the size of the force.
Steve Heimoff