Action Alert – Save Our Budget

Dear Oaklanders,

On June 23 rd the Oakland City Council passed a responsible and admirable budget to reconcile competing community demands to defund the police AND preserve police 911 response.

The Council removed a significant $14.3 million from the Oakland Police Department (OPD) budget and allocated much of it to creating a new emergency response system of community-led caretakers — a national-leading transformation in emergency response called MACRO — Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland.

Yet the cuts, even as we experience historic revenue loss due to COVID-19 pandemic, were carefully made to not further impair what is already sub-standard police 911 response , as well as not further strain Oakland’s under-staffed police force.

OPD already has the lowest officer per-crime staffing of any department in America.
Today , Councilmembers Kaplan and Bas are proposing a dangerous and irresponsible amendment to that already-approved budget. Their proposal would further impair emergency response capabilities, as well as make illusory budget cuts that could throw Oakland into even greater fiscal vulnerability.

Please read the objective Director of Finance’s analysis and concerns here .

Please contact the Oakland City Council at [email protected] OR speak up at today’s Council Meeting, and urge them too :

  • Reject the Kaplan-Bas proposal to decimate Oakland’s current capacity to respond to public safety emergencies.
  • Reject the Kaplan-Bas budget actions that the City’s objective Finance Director has deemed invalid.
  • Support the effort to create a sustainable reimagined system of public safety — not an irresponsible act of political theater that will destroy our current safety response system before we’ve created a new one to take its place.

We all support reimagining public safety and advancing racial justice. On June 23, the City Council already committed to doing just that — by immediately cutting and redirecting an unprecedented $14.3 million from OPD, as well as launching a thoughtful and responsible process over the next nine months to analyze a 50% reduction in police spending by our next budget action.

Oakland can lead the nation. Let’s create a reimagined system of public safety and justice in Oakland that’s based on real numbers and won’t abandon those who currently count on a 911 response until the new system is actually up and running.

With Oakland-love,
Libby

For details on today’s Council meeting, click here . The meeting starts TODAY at 1:30pm , but this budget amendment is the last item of the meeting – Item 16.