Schaaf Shakes Things Up. Defunders Panic!

Make no mistake about it: Libby Schaaf’s dramatic announcement yesterday that she wants to increase the number of cops on the streets of Oakland is a major defeat for the defund-the-police crowd on the City Council.

Rebuffed are Carroll Fife, Rebecca Kaplan, Nikki Bas, Noel Gallo, Dan Kalb and Sheng Thao, all of whom voted to defund the Oakland Police Department last June, despite emotional warnings from citizens and cops that doing so would result in a spike in crime.

And that is exactly what happened: Oakland’s Summer of Murder turned into the Autumn of Homicide, which is now morphing into a Winter of Death.

One can only wonder what’s going through Carroll Fife’s head right now. On Twitter, the defunder-in-chief’s response to Schaaf’s announcement seems to suggest she doesn’t believe the City Council has a role to play: “The police staffing crisis,” she tweeted, “as well as the staffing issues for many city departments, is an administrative issue. The [sic] is the authority of the City's administrative branch including the mayor, City Administrator & HR Director.”

What are we to make of this? A couple things. First, the statement’s very incoherence suggests that the Mayor caught Fife off-guard. Fife’s first instinct was, as usual, political: not to save lives, not to protect public safety, but to create a them-vs.-us situation, in which Fife places all responsibility for public safety on “the City’s administrative branch” while shirking responsibility for the legislative branch, the City Council. “Don’t blame us,” she’s saying in effect. “Solving this crime wave is the responsibility of the Mayor.”

Will Fife continue to vote to hobble the Oakland Police Department? Will Kaplan? The Vice Mayor retweeted a remark by someone else, which suggests she agrees with it. “Schaaf doesn’t ‘get stuff done.’ Her administration consistently ignores council decisions, get [sic] in hot water because of their unilateral choices, then blames the council when everything goes to hell.” Again, like Fife, Kaplan puts the blame on the Mayor, as if Libby Schaaf was the one who defunded OPD last June. Kaplan is very good at feuds; not so good when it comes to public safety.

How about Bas? Her tweet in response to Schaaf is as weird as Fife’s and Kaplan’s. First, the anodyne “hearts and minds” stuff: “My heart is heavy,” etc. Then this whopper: “We [the City Council] *increased* OPD funding.” When was that, Council Member Bas? Was it last June, when every media outlet reported that the City Council voted to strip OPD of $18 million? Then Bas, just like Fife and Kaplan, tosses all responsibility for OPD’s staffing crisis back to Schaaf: “We’ll have a special Council meeting 12/7 and hear from the Administration how they are managing these resources to address gun violence and to fill 60 officer vacancies.” Not a word about increased funding. No, just putting the burden on Libby Schaaf, while the City Council’s heart is heavy.

And Sheng Thao? Granted, she called for “sufficient officers on the beat,” but she didn’t define “sufficient,” and she certainly didn’t express concern that OPD staffing levels have fallen below the number required by Measure Z.

Still, in Thao’s defense, it has to be said that better late than never: She’s reversed herself on police funding in a way that can only be interpreted this way: now that she’s running for mayor, she realizes that she has to be pro law-and-order and can’t just mindlessly defund OPD to pursue vague “social justice” ends.

This situation is still playing out in unpredictable ways. The City Council’s early moves suggest an emerging strategy to blame everything on Schaaf. Chief Armstrong has his press conference this morning at 11 a.m. I’ll be there, and will report here. That Dec. 7 City Council meeting Bas referred to is just a week away. It’s going to be a biggie. Amidst all the uncertainty in this fog of war, we know one thing for sure: Oakland reached the tipping point with these latest murders and rampages. We will have more cops than was thought possible even a week ago. The defunders are just going to have to deal with it.

Steve Heimoff