by Paula Lehman/OAKLAND  Voters in Oakland, where there have been over 100 homicides so far in 2008, on Tuesday turned down a ballot measure that would have put 105 officers and 75 police services technicians on the street over the course of three years. But it wasn’t a lack of campaigning that ruined Measure NN’s chances; instead, many people believe that it was the unfulfilled promise of an earlier crime-fighting measure that killed this year’s initiative.

In 2004, council member Jean Quan co-authored Measure Y, which promised to enhance Oakland’s police force by raising nearly $20 million to recruit and train special police officers who act as intermediaries between the community and the police and to set up community programs to deal with issues such as prostitution and gang and drug violence. These additional officers would make the department 803-strong.

The department finally exceeded this goal Friday when it graduated 38 new officers bringing the number of officers up to 837. But Jim Dexter, a member of the Community Policing Advisory Board, said effectively the number of officers on the street has barely improved and voters lost confidence that the police officers promised in NN would never be provided.

Dexter points out that more officers are working administrative positions, the department is losing at least five officers a month to retirement, and he notes that the graduating class and the two classes before it are still in field training. He estimates the squad has 200 active on-street officers.

According to Charles Pine, co-founder of Oakland Residents for Peaceful Neighborhoods, there was a 30 percent drop from the voters who voted for Measure Y and those who voted for NN.

“The fact that the mayor thought he had to propose another measure to increase police speaks to the failure of Measure Y,” Pine said. “It shows we still don’t have enough police officers today.”

With a population of about 400,000, Oakland has 180 officers for 100,000 people. A comparable city in terms of demographics like Atlanta, which has a population of 500,000, has 353 officers for 100,000 people.

Quan says the lack of police officers has mostly to do with the high rate in which they are retiring. The reason the funds haven’t been used is because they weren’t collected until a year after the measure was voted in and it takes about a year to train a police officer. Plus, many cadets fail because of the intense screening process. Police spokesman Jeff Tomellson says out of a class of 100 cadets, the department may get 30 officers.

Quan says the department has recruited and trained over 250 officers and the department is still understaffed. The new total number of officers is still considered low when studies have shown the area should have at least 1,100 officers.

“Making the target 803 officers is based on how much people are willing to pay for,” said Quan. “More conservative constituents would say New York has twice as many cops as we do but they have a retail tax that a place like Oakland doesn’t have.”

Measure Y put 57 Problem Solving Officers on the streets of Oakland, one for each beat. Unlike patrol officers who answer calls relayed to them by a dispatcher, PSOs focus on less immediate issues. They attend community meetings where they work as intermediaries between the community and the police and work on solutions to community concerns.

In the ACORN housing project, for example, Measure Y officers have been addressing the gang activity that is occurring in the aftermath Operation Nutcracker in June, where 54 members of the ACORN gang were arrested. They conduct surveillance and patrol the surrounding area and violent crime has subsided for the moment.

But members of the community are challenging the department, saying their money is not being well spent.

“In reality we have 57 officers neither doing problem solving work nor community policing,” said Dexter. “They’re backing up an officer who’s going into a crack house. Or going off to make sure some domestic dispute isn’t going bad. All of which are good things to do as police officers, but it wasn’t the intent of the money that was spent.”

Because the process of training PSOs takes up to three years between graduating from the academy and taking special courses for PSOs, money for Measure Y has been used towards other police initiatives such as recruitment. The city is now being sued over the approval of $7.7 million for the augmented police recruitment strategy, and community members are frustrated with the police department’s inability to produce records of how the money is being spent. Measure Y funds went towards recruitment strategies instead of Measure Y initiatives such as setting up programs for sexually exploited minors and training problem solving officers.

“The city council needs money, and when they see money sitting around they take it,” said Dexter. “What we’re really talking about is the mismanagement of city council members and the leadership of the Oakland Police Department. You can say their hearts in the right place, but there’s an awful lot of eggs that could be broken here.”

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