Issues

Economic Revitalization

Oakland needs significant action to provide jobs, support our businesses, improve local revenue, and build a thriving economy.

• Many of Oakland’s most challenging problems are financial – and require focused effort to improve our economy and attract jobs for local residents and retain and expand businesses.  Strengthening our local economy also will provide revenue for the City budget, to provide essential public services.
• We need to update our zoning to help attract the right kinds of investment in desired locations.   We took an important first step when revising the zoning for the “Central Business District” in which we removed the “conditional use permit” requirement from many types of business types we are seeking to grow.
• Streamline the permit process, and make permits, fees, and more available online so that people do not need to stand in line or waste time on these tasks.
• Systematically review outside funding opportunities and make sure Oakland is positioned to apply and effectively use new funds that are being made available to cities.  Including funds for infrastructure, parks, healthy living, and more.   A particular strong area to seek funding is for “Transit Oriented Development,” because the State and Federal governments are offering grants to help cities develop revitalized urban areas with improved sidewalks, roads, and lighting, shops, housing, jobs, services, and more in walk-able, bike-able areas accessible to transit.  These opportunities can allow us to create jobs while improving quality of life in the community.
• Promote local business attraction in which we actively recruit investment in Oakland (both to support/expand existing businesses and to attract new ones).  Use tools like the “Main Street USA” survey to help identify desired investments.
• Work to bring full-service grocery stores to neighborhoods which do not have them, revitalize Broadway/Uptown as a mixed-use area with retail and entertainment (along with housing and offices),  transform the Oakland Coliseum and its surroundings from a costly burden into an asset with hotels, restaurants and more that generates jobs and revenue.
• Work to develop good paying local jobs in trade, logistics, construction, and more.
• Provide for effective local hiring methods to improve economic opportunity in Oakland.
• Continue to build on our growing food sector, by encouraging development of the full range including food production, and creating a coherent permit system for mobile food trucks.
• Help to restore Oakland’s revenue by making it easier to shop in Oakland by providing more retail opportunities here, so that sales dollars stay in our economy, providing funding for vital public services.
• Remove blight, including bringing enforcement actions against “repeat offenders” who cause multiple blighted properties, remove graffiti and provide for neighborhood beautification. (Including through “summer jobs” programs).
• Fight predatory loans and unjust foreclosures and wrongful evictions, which are creating a significant negative impact on our economy while harming families and neighborhoods. (We have taken an important first step by creating a foreclosed/vacant property registry, which will make it easier to identify and respond to problems).
• Develop Oakland as a center for green technology, health care, arts, and other emerging industries.
• Projects to insulate and rehabilitate local buildings, develop green technologies, and provide transit-oriented development can create thousands of jobs while also reducing environmental impacts and oil-dependency problems.  (Also helping to keep money in the local economy, rather than going overseas to oil providers).
• Recognize that the need for local jobs and the need for business success go together, including that small businesses create the overwhelming majority of jobs.

Public Safety

In order to provide the basic building blocks for a thriving community, we must provide for public safety in Oakland.   The lack of public safety contributes to a wide range of problems, both personal and financial.  This means pursuing effective strategies to solve, prevent, and reduce crimes.

One of the most important policing methods for preventing crime is by providing visible, walking “beat” officers who are assigned to cover a particular area. (Oakland has historically called it “community policing” and now OPD uses the phrase “problem-solving officers” for this type of assignment).   When officers are visible, it tends to deter crime and sends a message that Oakland is not a place to commit crime.  When officers are consistently assigned to cover the same area, they get to know it better, and the community gets to know them.  This reduces tension and mistrust, and improves the ability of police to gather information to solve and prevent crimes.  In 2004, over 69% of Oakland voters approved Measure Y, which mandated a program to provide an assigned officer for every police ‘beat’ in Oakland.

• We must keep the promise to the voters, providing an assigned officer to every “beat” in Oakland.
• Provide for the other personnel needed to ensure that we have the capacity to answer 9-1-1 calls, gather evidence and solve crimes.  (E.g. fingerprinting, evidence technicians, 9-1-1 dispatchers).
• Look for creative and successful solutions.  For example, one of our challenges is the fact that a majority of crimes are committed by ex-offenders, who are often released from prison with no help to seek a changed life.  There are re-entry groups in Oakland, such as the Men of Valor program, which have a great track record helped ex-offenders turn their lives around, stop committing crime, and obtain jobs — and we should be supporting and expanding this type of program.
• Expand the use of Safety Ambassadors, who are uniformed safety professionals (who are not sworn police officers).  Thanks to the Business Improvement Districts, this program has recently been launched in the Uptown and Downtown of Oakland, providing personnel who can both provide directions and information, and improve public safety.  This program should be strengthened, including extended hours, and in additional locations.
• Once fully implemented, the City of Atlanta reported that their public safety and information patrol has reduced crime in the area by 60%.
• Provide the Chief of Police with the support needed to deploy personnel in the best way possible to enhance public safety.
• Support “Street Outreach Workers” who directly intervene to prevent the cycle of violence, and provide positive role models.

• Provide Blight reporting more easily, and online, improve blight clean-up and removal and enforcement.
• Improve “false alarm” program to reduce frequency of false alarms (and therefore, make sure we are not wasting police resources on false alarms so they can focus on real crime)

An Effective and Responsive Government

The people of Oakland deserve a government which is accessible and responds quickly and accurately.  In which we do not waste people’s time, and we welcome their involvement.

• Streamline Oakland’s permit processes, and make sure materials and payment systems are available online to reduce time involved.  By saving staff time, we can devote resources to more important functions.
• End business license requirements and fees for very small businesses (e.g. income up to $25,000 per year), since the fees collected from such businesses are often less than the cost of collecting them.
• Ensure that phone calls to City of Oakland are answered and public response is effective, timely, and thoughtful.  This includes in areas ranging from parking tickets to permits and more.
• More effectively use and welcome the support of volunteers and community based organizations
• Improve public records retention and search capabilities, including putting Oakland’s City documents online in a “full text searchable” format so the public can find needed materials and information.
• Over the coming years, as a large percentage of the workforce is scheduled to retire, use the opportunity to re-examine appropriate and needed job tasks due to changed circumstances, and shift job descriptions and expectations to fit our present and our future.
• Recruit the best and brightest, train talented internal staff for new opportunities, role model respectful and responsive behavior, and make it clear that this is expected of everyone.
• Use modern technology effectively to improve responsiveness to the public and reduce time wasted doing things like having staff re-enter data which was already entered into a different system.
• Provide clear assignments so that staff knows what is expected of them, and the public knows what to expect of the City.