Its author, Marlene Sacks, is an Oakland lawyer who is expert on the subject of Measure Z, a popular proposition passed by voters in 2014 allowing the city to collect additional taxes for law enforcement -- but the measure also included a provision that the deal would be off if the City let the OPD staffing fall below 678. It today stands at 681.
What follows is an email sent November 10 by Oakland lawyer Marlene Sacks to Oakland officials, calling them on their discussion of an "exemption" allowing them to back away from the bargain. Please share this uncommonly important letter with other Oakland voters..
Dear Oakland Officials:
It has been brought to my attention that police staffing will shortly fall below the required 678 officers, meaning that Measure Z funding will be reduced. Apparently the City Administrator will attempt to make the case that one of the three exemptions outlined in Measure Z applies.
As many of you know, I am one of the people who authored the opposition to Measure Z. I am familiar with the measure, and none of the three exemptions would apply here.
The first exemption deals with grant or other non-general purpose funding that becomes unavailable, resulting in a budget shortfall. This exemption would not apply, because the loss of staffing is unrelated to budget shortfalls. The second exemption relates to a severe and unanticipated financial event that impacts the availability of General Purpose funds. Again, this would not apply, since the reduction in police staffing is unrelated to financial constraints.
The third exception applies if the number of officers "unexpectedly" falls below the threshold, despite the City's adoption and implementation of a hiring plan. As applied here, the number of officers dropping below the threshold had not been "unexpected." It has been repeatedly predicted that if the City did not budget for and add police academies, staffing would fall below 678 officers. Nobody who has been paying attention can claim that this was "unexpected."
Measure Y promised Oaklanders 803 officers, and a community policing officer for each beat, which essentially never happened. You betrayed the public's trust, and you got sued. More recently, you tried to confirm a ballot measure as having passed, when it didn't. You betrayed the public's trust, and you got sued. A superior court called your actions a "fraud on the voters." And now, you are going to try to get around the clear language of Measure Z to try to claim that an exemption applies, when it clearly does not. If you go forward with this plan, you will lose what remaining trust is left, and you will get sued, again.
The bottom line is that the staffing threshold is an incentive for you to do your jobs and make sure this City has at least a bare bones police department. It is an incentive for you not to "defund" the police and throw money away at unproven programs, like the Department of Violence Prevention and MACRO. It is an incentive to ensure that you hold a sufficient number of academies to replace departing officers, and to ensure that morale in the police department does not continue to deteriorate. But you are not responding to those incentives, and so, staffing is dropping.
The obvious cost to you is that you will lose funding. And for every day that you fail to get police staffing back to where it should be, you will lose funding. That is the price you pay, under the language you wrote.
I urge you to spend your time right now doing everything you can to get police staffing to over 800 officers, which is really the actual bare minimum. Please do not waste precious time and resources trying to get out of the clear consequences of Measure Z. The language is clear. No exemptions apply.Marlene Sacks