I am a resident of Oakland submitting this comment in opposition to any budget proposal that cuts or further underfunds the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA), the Police Commission, or the Office of Inspector General.
Oaklanders voted for civilian police oversight twice — Measure LL in 2016 and Measure S1 in 2020 — not as aspirational policy, but as a direct democratic response to a police department that federal courts have formally found, over two decades, incapable of reliably investigating itself. The CPRA, Commission, and OIG are not administrative luxuries. They are voter-mandated institutions. Cutting them during a budget crisis is not fiscal prudence.
If this Council is serious about closing structural deficits, it must implement basic overtime controls on OPD that every comparable city already has. It must fund its voter-approved obligations rather than continuing to collect taxes while declaring fiscal necessity. And it must protect the civilian oversight infrastructure that voters have fought for and won.
Cutting the CPRA or Commission while leaving OPD overtime ungoverned is not a budget solution. It is a choice about whose accountability matters.
I am a resident of Oakland submitting this comment in opposition to any budget proposal that cuts or further underfunds the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA), the Police Commission, or the Office of Inspector General.
Oaklanders voted for civilian police oversight twice — Measure LL in 2016 and Measure S1 in 2020 — not as aspirational policy, but as a direct democratic response to a police department that federal courts have formally found, over two decades, incapable of reliably investigating itself. The CPRA, Commission, and OIG are not administrative luxuries. They are voter-mandated institutions. Cutting them during a budget crisis is not fiscal prudence.
If this Council is serious about closing structural deficits, it must implement basic overtime controls on OPD that every comparable city already has. It must fund its voter-approved obligations rather than continuing to collect taxes while declaring fiscal necessity. And it must protect the civilian oversight infrastructure that voters have fought for and won.
Cutting the CPRA or Commission while leaving OPD overtime ungoverned is not a budget solution. It is a choice about whose accountability matters.