Empower Oakland's Survey

A Tale of 2 Cities & the Tepid Return of the Broligarchy

“Oakland is so creative,” she said. “We got a lot of soul here, and there’s so many people that are so inspiring. We’re so grounded. And I love, I love this place.” Alysa Liu

Tonight I attended Mayor Lee's Public Safety Town Hall in West Oakland. Along with Mayor Lee, her usual cheery bubbling-with-info-self, the current police chief, city administrator, violence prevention leader, fire chief and others doing good work. I came away pumped.

But a couple days ago I read a sad survey that made me wonder what kind of or which city I live in. You all probably heard of it from a spanking new local polling company. This their first survey of Sadness and Dissatisfaction, more to come...

According to Empower Oakland, “Today, a new poll dropped from the East Bay Polling Institute, which surveyed 700 registered voters across Oakland.”

If you're wondering what the East Bay Polling Institute is, and well you might, “a new poll dropped from them,” makes it sound as if this is some respected institution you should have heard of.

But immediately rumors started swirling, wondering if this is just another branch of EO like Oakland Report. Alistair Thornton and Eli Bildner told us nothing about themselves in the About Us section. I understand one is a Piedmont resident while another is from El Cerrito and may be connected to the Abundance Network, local techies which helped fund the county recalls, also connected to local landlords.

They list supposed supporters on their website. The first two are Assemblymember Buffy Wicks who mostly reps North Oakland, Berkeley and Piedmont, then Libby Schaaf and former state rep and anti-worker politician Steve Glazer. It also includes CM Zac Unger who asked that his name be removed because he had not intended to promote the company.

The survey results as shown by EO are full of spiffy full color charts to convince you of their credibility. Their questions seem as if they are inspired by one of Jimmy Kimmel's, on-the-street interviews, more silly than serious.

I love the first question about crime. It asked whether you or anyone you know, like you know, your brother-in-law's drinking buddy have experienced even petty crime. Did you friend's friend leave their backpack on the sidewalk accidentally and it was stolen? Do you remember someone once telling you they knew an Oaklander who was carjacked? The survey specifies “in the last 12 months” but can you recall when your buddy says that happened? OK, point is 60% of people think crime is still up…I don't know if there was ever a time that you could ask an American in any city if crime is up and they would not say yes…

Do Oaklanders want more police presence? Did you need to spend big tech bucks across Piedmont to tell us that?

Here's the thing, residents love to pretend that Oakland leaders don't want cops and that's why we're understaffed. It's hard to imagine anything less true. Politicians are the most likely to promote cops to fix anything or it's just a case of a dog chasing its tail that residents think cops can fix anything (catch any criminal) but unless you had one on every block, that's unlikely.

However, since politicians aim to please, they are willing to spend the very big bucks even during very hard times trying to lure the dwindling number of young people willing to enter the force. The city budgets $3 to $4 million per training academy. But they're lucky to graduate 12 new officers in each.

Meantime according to Millie Cleveland, chair of the Coalition for Police Accountability, “there are at least 38 sworn officers positions in internal affairs, public information, training, etc approved by city council for transition to civilian staff, however civilianization never occurred. Full civilianization of these roles would allow the department to redeploy officers to special enforcement, investigations or patrol, reducing overtime needs by 79,000 to 83,000 overtime hours annually or $8 million. Civilianization would also allow for the elimination of sworn officer overtime performed in these units, further reducing costs by over $5.2 million. In total, civilianization could reduce overtime spending by $13.2 million. These changes would help the department make even deeper reductions to overtime beyond what has already been proposed.”

The interim wannabe chief has now attempted to institute rules around abuse of overtime.https://oaklandside.org/2026/03/11/oakland-police-chief-orders-end-discretionary-overtime-james-beere/#:~:text=inPublic%20Safety-,Overtime%20at%20OPD%20is%20now%20much%20harder%20to%20greenlight%2C%20following,how%20the%20department%20manages%20overtime. And that's hopeful…

We will see how that goes. It will have to show results quickly to make a difference in upcoming budget and contract talks. At the Public Safety townhall last night, the mayor mentioned a number of officers, not more than you can count on one hand, who left OPD but are now interested in returning to the Town. She also talked about the funds she's secured to bring back the police cadets’ program, support our excellent violence prevention programs, and expand Macro.

One thing I've been harping on for years was the usefulness of implementing community policing as a means of crime prevention. Though the city voted to make OPD a community policing department in the 90s, it never came close to happening. Having officers walk beats, attend neighborhood meetings and even work out of neighborhood centers in order to see trouble brewing before it became a violent crime, never appealed to much of the rank and file. Aa result the police union, OPOA, did not allow it to take effect. I have lamented that and promoted the change for years.

Listening to Violence Prevention head Holly Joshi last night in combination with Cristy Johnston Limón, who serves as the Deputy Director of the Economic & Workforce Development Department talk about violence interrupters and ambassadors in the most troubled neighborhoods or developing business districts, I realize that we may have backed into community policing.

I feel fairly certain that under Chief Beere, communication and coordination with OPD is healthy and growing. So long as the new crop of cops and the chief see the necessity of coordinating with these departments (to include MACRO), we may see the continuing downtrend in crime, especially violent crime. And as the Mayor says, when you curb violent crime, you'll see property crime decrease.

So, once again, yeah, city leadership knows they need to staff up the police department and 911, they should also acknowledge that at least 38 experienced officers are available right now for patrol or investigations if only they would properly fund CPRA, the Community Police Review Agency, in lieu of Internal Affairs and support the Office of the Inspector General. It's not possible to exit federal oversight until we embrace these changes.

Folks online complaining about “defund the police” and antipolice politicians are out of the loop and cannot help us move forward. Harder times are coming and we must utilize every resource we have carefully and creatively. All these civilian organizations have the capability of producing public safety for much less (when coordinated with OPD.) And local police oversight will remain an important part of that package.

Oakland should be proud of its leadership in this area. We went from a nationally notorious & brutal force to one (beginning) to recognize and work with innovative civilian crime prevention methods and honor police accountability.

As for the rest of this “survey”, it's a story for another time. Remember that no amount of data can shape the outcomes like the questions asked or implied in the first place. GIGO.

“What does the beach say when the tide comes in? Long time no sea! Wocka wocka,” Fozzi Bear