We get quite a few comments from citizens through our Gmail account (coalitionforabetteroakland@gmail.com). Most of their concerns are about crime and homeless encampments. Typically, someone will write in about their own particular situation, in their own neighborhood, and they’ll add that they’ve contacted their city council member or OPD multiple times, but never hear anything back, and the situation never changes.
I often feel that they’re writing to me out of sheer desperation. They’ve run out of options; it’s all they can do. It’s not like they think I can do anything about their situation; I can’t. All I can do is commiserate and urge them to keep hope alive. It’s not much in the way of relief, but at least they know they’re not alone, that someone is listening to them.
The subject of “the tipping point” often comes up. What will it take to finally move Oakland to act? We’ve seen this with Trump for the last 5 years. He’s done so many awful things that the tipping point for him should already have occurred—that point when even a majority of Republicans admit he’s a gigantic greasy P.O.S. who belongs behind bars. But Trump’s tipping point keeps receding further into the distance.
In Oakland, cops I talk to say they believe a tipping point will be reached when crime becomes so bad that even people in the hills and “safe” neighborhoods are freaked out. How will we recognize our tipping point, when and if it occurs? I expect we’d see increased police funding, for more Academies, more 911 operators, more community policing. That, however, would require the City Council to increase OPD’s budget, which leads to an important question: What if the citizens at large wanted an expanded police force, but certain City Council members chose to disregard them? After all, tipping points don’t affect everyone equally, or at the same time. It’s perfectly possible for a majority of Oaklanders to demand change and for a majority of the City Council to refuse to act.
This is what I mean when I say that the City Council is dominated by ideologues. Ideologues are by definition uncompromising and dogmatic. They hold onto their views even when Reality contradicts them. When I think of the world’s worst ideologues, I think of the Taliban, with their rigid, hostile brand of Islam; of evangelicals, with their closed minds waiting for the Rapture; and, yes, of “woke” politicians, who insist on the imposition of their ideology on the population even at the expense of public safety. In other words, we might reach a tipping point in Oakland, only to have it canceled by the City Council.
What then are our alternatives? If no one on the City Council cares what ordinary Oaklanders think, what can we do? The obvious answer is to vote the bastards out and replace them with politicians who actually listen to the people. Oakland has a pretty good voter turnout percentage: in 2000, 81.3% of eligible voters voted. But that was a Presidential year, and Trump’s unpopularity drove many people to the polls. In off-year elections, voter turnout is much lower (which is why Gov. Newsom may be in trouble; even through Democrats outnumber Republicans in California 2 to 1, they tend to ignore off-year elections).
This voter apathy is what the City Council is counting on. Although they’re nominally Democrats, and although they strongly condemn the voter suppression efforts of Republicans, the truth is that the Oakland City Council doesn’t like elections. They believe that they know what’s best for the rest of us, so we might as well just sit home watching T.V. instead of voting. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we proved them wrong? We have a very important election cycle coming up next year (November, 2022): not only a new Mayor, but council members from districts 2, 4 and 6. That would be Fortunato Bas, Thao and Taylor. The first two, Fortunato Bas and Thao, voted to defund the police by more than $18 million. If you live in District 2 or District 4, it’s not too early to begin to look for alternative candidates.
Steve Heimoff