Let me tell you why you don’t see more official city polls about how Oaklanders really feel about defunding the police and getting rid of encampments. It’s because the City Council is scared shitless of what such polls would reveal—namely, that the great majority of citizens think the City Council is hopelessly out of step with voters’ wishes.
Concerning attitudes towards the police department, the last time the city conducted an official poll was in December, 2020. This was the so-called “Budget Survey.” They didn’t do the poll because they wanted to, but because they had to: Oakland is mandated “to conduct a statistically valid survey to assess the public’s concerns, needs and priorities prior to the development of the biennial budget,” and since Oakland had to approve its 2021-2023 budget by June 30, 2021, the Budget Survey was undertaken. It was the fairest, most in-depth survey ever done by the city. Nearly 2,000 Oaklanders from every demographic group were interviewed, in three languages, about a broad array of issues. When it came to the question of cops, here’s what We, the People, said: “78% want the same number or more police officers patrolling neighborhoods and responding to 911 calls.”
Now, when is the last time you heard anyone on the City Council mention this poll? I’ll answer for you: Never. They don’t want to talk about it because it conflicts with their fake narrative that the people of Oakland want fewer police. For instance, here’s District 3 Council Member Fife, on her website: “By moving just half of the public funding we spend on policing in Oakland into programs that are actually proven to prevent violence, we can build a safer community for everyone.” Well, if you reduce OPD’s funding by 50%, you can’t provide “the same number or more police officers patrolling neighborhoods.” It’s for this reason that Fife and her cohorts are repressing the Budget Survey—and why they won’t permit additional polling on the topic.
Meanwhile, what is the public’s attitude towards encampments? We don’t have anything specific for Oakland because they city hasn’t done any polling (again, because they’re scared to). But we can make inferences based on other polls taken in the Bay Area. The Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s poll from last year, taken in the 5 Bay Area counties bordering the Bay, is telling: Asked if homelessness is getting worse, 70% said it is, but in Alameda County the number was 79%, the highest of any of the counties. And Oakland is, of course, Alameda County’s biggest city.
Another private poll, also from last year, found that “Nearly 78 percent [of Oakland respondents]… said they have been negatively affected by the city’s high population of people experiencing homelessness,” with “safety, health, trash and violence” being respondents’ chief concerns. Their proposed solutions included, obviously, “more federal and state funding” (since people perceive this costs them nothing personally) but also “City- and county sanctioned encampments” of the sort we at the Coalition have repeatedly called for—and which Oakland’s official Encampment Management Policy, now shelved, also mandates.
These two polls are all we really have in determining Oaklanders’ attitudes about encampments, and again, the reason is because the City Council, and Mayor Schaaf, don’t want the People to express ourselves. They don’t want to hear that a solid majority is sick and tired of the encampments; our elected leaders prefer to live in their La-La Lands of Tiny Houses and converted motels, which they pretend are “progressive” and “practical” solutions, but which are merely Band-Aids that permit encampments to multiply.
What happens when government, out of touch with its citizens, no longer even cares about their wants and needs? You need look no further than Oakland and its oligarchic City Council, where they care about their funders and their wokeness, and not about us, the People, who pay their salaries.