Grand Lake Neighbors August 16 2023 Meeting Minutes

Minutes for August 16 meeting in Barnett Hall, Lakeshore Baptist Church Attendance: 32, including OPD(2) and City reps(3)  Questions: Eric Hughes – hughesearthur@gmail.com August Minutes documented in collaboration with Tim Gardner
NEXT MEETING: WEDNESDAY, September 20, 2023

❖ Crime reports and project status from OPD

•  2 OPD CROs (Community Resource Officer) present, including Officers McKinney (beats 14, 15, 16), Le (beat 17)
•  Officer McKinney provided the following data (combined for 14Y and 16X.)

•  Crime has increased in every category-except for residential and commercial burglaries.
•  OPD is running a 30-day violence suppression operation in certain areas of Oakland in concert with Field Operations, Ceasefire, ATF, and the Violent Crime Operations Center. It is a concentration of resources, investigative power, and temporary suspension of some daily activities of beat officers (like community work) to suppress crime and take-down perpetrators and crime rings.
•  There has been a drop in police presence starting in August in the Grand Lake; this is because of the reduction in the overtime budget and the violence suppression activities mentioned above.
•  What does OPD need for sustained suppression operations?
  • More officers.
  • Better and more accessible technology (like having a network of license plate readers and restored access to Flock video data).
  • Policy changes.
•  Keara from Dan Kalb’s office: Getting approval for license plate readers is a long process – getting a proposal ready for Council for approval. NOTE: If they were already approved and working at one time, are we reinventing the wheel here? Here is a related Oaklandside Article.
•  David Flack noted that by his own first-hand analysis of FBI data on 40 cities larger and smaller than Oakland, Oakland needs 230 more sworn officers to meet the average force. That would mean a total of 940 sworn officers, not the current 710.

➢ Again (as in June and July), a large portion of the meeting was residents sharing their concerns about neighborhood safety issues. These are the current areas of OPD’s focus:

• Commercial and Auto burglaries, Robberies, Vehicle and Catalytic converter thefts, traffic/vehicular violations.
• High Visibility Patrols and auto burglary suppression operations have been tasked within the Grand, Lakeshore and Trestle Glen areas due to the increase in auto burglaries, robberies, and stolen vehicles.
• Current projects: Traffic enforcement within the Grand and Lakeshore business districts and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CEPTED) on Lakeshore Ave and Grand Ave business corridor.
• TASK: At the September meeting, revisit these priorities to consider changes.
  ➢ ISSUE: What policies need to be reviewed and changed to let law enforcement do a better job keeping us safe? SAME AS LAST MONTH.,
  ❖ Find the current Oakland street paving plan here.
  ❖ Status of Ohana Cannabis Dispensary as of 8/16/23:

➢ “Ohana has submitted plans to the building and fire departments to allow them to upgrade the building and I (Greg Minor) believe they are currently waiting on the fire prevention bureau to finish reviewing their plans. My understanding is the construction is relatively minor and won’t take long, so the delay has been the plan review process thus far”

❖ Updates from Council Offices (Nikki Bas’s district and Dan Kalb’s district)
➢ Dan Kalb reviewed his personal Public Safety priorities.

■ 911 response time improvement. He wants more training and retention programs. And wants to ‘study’ having a separate phone line for fire and medical emergencies. A community member pointed out that it already exists (510-444-1616). Kalb said no one knows it and Council Members are not allowed to advertise it. (Note, Grand Lake Neighbors and others have been giving this number out for years. You can even find it on the grandlakeneighbors.org website. He also didn’t bring up the fact that most 911 calls from cell phones in Oakland go first to the CHP and are triaged from there.)

• He said 98% of young people are not involved in crime. The other 2% are repeat offenders. And rhetorically asked: “how do we reach those children proactively?”
• He says it’s 6 months at least for any changes and actions to be agreed on. (There was a lot of audience frustration about that statement.)
• Prioritizing full staffing of investigations
• Trying to reverse the reduction in OT budget
• Ceasefire support
• More programs for rehabilitation at the state level to reduce recidivism
• Article in Oaklandside about what the City Council can do about crime.
  ❖ SSOC Commissioner presentation

• The Public Safety and Services Oversight Commission (SSOC) oversees the proper administration of the revenue collection and spending, and the implementation of the programs funded through Measure Z: The 2014 Oakland Public Safety and Services Violence Prevention Act revenue. Members are appointed by the Mayor and City Council members.
• Commissioners presenting (both volunteers):
  • Omar Farmer (ofarmer@hotmail.com), Grand Lake neighbor
  • Yoana Q. (ioanaq@gmail.com, 301-502-5785), Assistant DA in San Francisco and Oakland resident
  • Both are relatively new to the Commission
• Oversight of Measure Z (which expires next year)
  • $25-29M of dedicated parcel taxes per year for violence prevention
  • SSOC is the mandated oversight body. All public citizens. All volunteers.3 open positions currently on the Commission
  • Oversees OPD, Fire Dept. and DVP prevention programs
•  Home false alarms cost the equivalent of 4.5 – 6.5 full time OPD officers. They want to use AI technology to reduce this waste.
•  Wrote a strategic plan (for the first time)
•  Make a recommendation 1/year to the City Council on changes
  • Last year’s recommendations were not implemented
  • They are asking for community ideas for this year’s recommendations
•  They want to build-up MACRO to be more effective
• SSOC is recruiting for three open commission seats.