I often use the phrase “If Oakland was a normal city” to suggest that Oakland is not normal, no more than a blood test showing 150 mg/dl of blood sugar is normal. If you got that test result, you’d be diagnosed with diabetes, and your doctor would prescribe treatment.
Unfortunately, Oakland has the crime equivalent of diabetes, but the doctor is out. Or on vacation. Or in a coma—who knows? The latest news that “Oakland has missed out on an opportunity to collect millions in state funding to help police combat organized retail theft” is simply more evidence (as if more were needed) that the woke politicos who run this town—hello, Nikki Bas--either are hopelessly incompetent, or else they don’t want state money because they actually like organized retail theft. It helps them justify wasting the taxpayers’ money on their ridiculous “violence prevention” grifts.
Here’s the back story. Gov. Newsom awarded $267 million in grants for California cities to use for things like police patrols, squad cars and automatic license plate readers. All the cities had to do was apply and fill out some forms. San Francisco did and got $17.3 million. The San Jose Police Department did and got $8.5 million. Even the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office applied and got $2 million.
And Oakland? Nope. Nikki Fortunato Bas, the President of the Oakland City Council and a notorious cop hater, supposedly was in charge of the effort. But she missed the deadline for filing. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to successfully submit [the paperwork] in time,” says Oakland’s Economic and Workforce Development Department director, apologizing for Bas’s incompetence. As Carl Chan, who’s spearheading the Recall Pamela Price movement, put it delicately, “We need[ed] this [money]. And I don’t think they are listening.”
Not listening? These wokes haven’t listened for years. Nikki Bas takes her orders from the unions, who take their orders from Cat Brooks and other extremists who run this town. Now, if Oakland was a normal city, there would be hell to pay for Bas’s ineptitude. The City Council would be up in arms, but, of course, it isn’t, because Bas runs it. The Mayor would be screaming from the rooftops, demanding Bas resign, but of course she isn’t, because she’s joined at the hip with Bas. The citizens, and especially small business owners, would be picketing outside City Hall. But none of that is happening, or will happen, because Oakland is not a normal city. It’s a city that believes organized retail theft is simply a necessary by-product of achieving social justice and tearing down systemic racism. Call it the redistribution of wealth by other means.
Look, Bas and her friend Carroll Fife have been the most virulently anti-police council members for years. They were the only two who voted against adding new Police Academies following Oakland’s horrific Summer of Murder in 2021, when more than 130 people were slaughtered on our streets. Can you imagine Bas not caring? The Summer of ’21 was when normal people, even liberals, woke up to the fact that “progressive government” wasn’t performing very well and was, in fact, destroying Oakland. Even Rebecca Kaplan and Sheng Thao voted for the new academies. But not Thao and Fife. No, they decided Oakland had too many cops. Nor has either apologized since then.
How awful these people are. I don’t write much about Kaplan because, frankly, she’s a has-been who’s tried for higher office for years and keeps losing because people don’t like her. We’re probably stuck with Kaplan on the Council for some time to come, unless the WNBA, which she’s shilling for, hires her, which is obviously her goal. But Bas is a piece of work. Fueled entirely by woke ideology, impervious to the real needs of Oakland, she works behind the scenes to harm the Oakland Police Department, and in her lunatic fantasies, she envisions herself Mayor after Thao is termed out—or is recalled.
Have a wonderful, safe weekend. I’ll be back on Monday morning.
Steve Heimoff