Results of the new East Bay Express reader poll are astounding, when you consider how consistently left-of-center the free paper has been for decades. You would think that its readers share the paper’s anti-cop point of view. But the poll’s results strongly demonstrate that the vast majority of them are closer to the moderate policies we advocate here at the Coalition for a Better Oakland than they are to the progressive policies pushed by the likes of Carroll Fife and Sheng Thao.
Indeed, some of the comments could have been written by me. Turns out East Bay residents are strongly pro-police and anti-crime, and they don’t have a very good view of homeless people. They want encampments gone, and they’re already calling Sheng Thao “Jean Quan Part II,” which is not a compliment!
Here are some typical reader comments:
“OPD failure to respond to burglaries, home invasions and robberies has only encouraged such crimes. When these criminals are successful, they move on to more serious crime or break-in while residents are home. … Small things, when ignored, become big things.” This clearly echoes what we’ve been saying, although it doesn’t mention that OPD’s woes are due to understaffing and meddling by bureaucracies like the Oakland Police Commission and the Federal monitor, Robert Warshaw.
“The neighborhood business areas are economic and community-building engines. Making sure they are safe, clean and humane need to be city priorities.” We’ve long urged the City to get serious about investing in our business areas, especially downtown, which is the economic hub of the city. But the City Council has been far more interested in raising taxes to fund their far-out “social equity” schemes, leading to more degradation downtown and more businesses fleeing Oakland.
“The City of Oakland needs to stop being held hostage by employee unions and actually hold city employees accountable for delivering high-quality service.” We all witnessed the cynical hold the unions have on our local politics when they poured vast fortunes into the campaigns of Nikki Bas and Sheng Thao. No one ever explained what deals the candidates had struck with the unions for their largesse. How we break this union stranglehold on our politics should be our focus going forward.
“Become a SUPPORTER of your police department! You can be progressive AND support police at the same time. STOP aligning with Cat Brooks and Carroll Fife—Oaklanders don’t want far left ‘police abolitionists’ calling your shots.” Like I said, these are words I could have written—and have, often!
Doubts about Thao’s abilities were woven through the comments. “With Sheng as the city’s CEO, there’s absolutely no hope any department will get easier or better to deal with or their (sic) will be any accountability. The unions aligned behind her so they wouldn’t have to be accountable.”
Another Thao-skeptic wrote, “The far left is going to abandon her once she has to make a hard-but-necessary decision, and the moderates are already skeptical she has the capacity to govern. This smells like Jean Quan Part II.”
Jean Quan, you’ll remember, was the failed one-term mayor who shamefully led an anti-police march through the City.
It’s clear that the people of Oakland—at least, those who responded to the East Bay Express poll—are in a sour mood. They feel that the last election utterly failed to address our many problems. They suspect the new batch of incoming politicians will be even worse than the old batch. They’re not in a good mood, and neither are we. We’ll be watching Thao & Co. very closely and reporting on their mistakes.
Have an amazing weekend! Back on Monday.
Steve Heimoff