Last week, Gary Sirbu’s “My Word” submission to the Oakland Tribune highlighted numerous problems with the Measure Y Oversight Committee, and noted that one of its members is, get this, a high school student. Yeah, that’s right, Nancy Nadel appointed a high school student to be her representative in charge of overseeing community policing and violence prevention programs with a $20 million annual budget. And the City Council approved it - unanimously!
Now, Michael E. Brown, the appointee, has an impressive resume - for a high school student. He’s taken welding and blacksmithing classes at The Crucible. Good for him. I’ve taken classes there too. He’s a “Youth Assistant” at “The Attitudinal Healing Connection.” Guess that gives him some good experience with the types of programs Measure Y works with. Oh, wait, isn’t that a program that gets Measure Y funds? Isn’t that some sort of conflict of interest? Hmmmm. He’s also in the Skyline High marching band. Go Titans! He’s got a GPA of “2.50-3.50.” Never heard of a flexible GPA, but it's been a while since I was in high school. In his submission letter to Ms. Nadel, he states that he wants to “set a good example” and “make a difference.” Very original. He goes on, “I believe in violence prevention, fire safety, etc.” Well, thank god for that!
I would have liked to meet the young lad at the meeting on Monday, but he wasn’t there. Maybe he was grounded. Or had too much homework.
Apparently, young Mr. Brown’s qualifications, or lack thereof, received some criticism at the time he was appointed (this past spring), but any concerns were shrugged off with assertions that it would be good to have a representative from the community served by Measure Y. Huh? Does this mean we should appoint a dog to the Animal Control Board? How about appointing a convicted felon to the Police Review Board? Better yet, a four-year-old to the “Kids First” Oversight Committee! Will the insanity never end?
Then there’s the conflict of interest issue. I did a Public Records Request for all Form 700s ever submitted by members of the Measure Y Oversight Committee. This form recently received attention because Mayor Dellums didn’t fill his out correctly - he failed to disclose payment for a trip to South Africa. Now he’s facing more public scrutiny and a significant fine. The forms are required annually for all public officials, who must disclose all sources of income, including gifts over $50.00, to ensure an absence of any conflict of interest. Guess what? No member of the MYOC has EVER submitted a Form 700. Go figure.
I’ve submitted a public ethics complaint regarding the matter. My first ethics complaint, which will be set for hearing in January, involved the City’s failure to provide adequate and timely responses to my previous requests, including failure to disclose email addresses for members of the MYOC. The City claimed it was justified in withholding the email addresses on the grounds that this was “private information.” The ultimate irony is that when I asked for a copy of Mr. Brown’s resume, it was promptly provided, with his email address, home address, home phone, and cell phone numbers all included! But I’ll keep that to myself….
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Chief Batts Brought to City Hall In Handcuffs
New Police Chief Anthony Batts has been going around town giving local neighborhood groups his perspectives on his new job and answering questions from the community. I got a chance to hear him speak at Montera Middle School last Thursday. Overall, I was quite impressed. He was a good speaker, seemed engaged and committed, and answered questions in a straightforward, albeit diplomatic manner. He acknowledged that OPD was “broken,” and that there was an overwhelming amount of work to be done. He was clear we need more police, but also acknowledged that the City is telling him there’s no money. My overall impression was that if the City doesn’t give him the resources he says he so desperately needs, they’re tying both hands behind his back.
One of the points that he made that I thought merited particular attention included his statement that the police force is the “economic driver” of a city. Without an effective police force, he said, a city cannot be safe, and if the city isn’t safe, people won’t want to live here, and businesses won’t want to do business there either. This is a point I have continuously been trying to make with City leaders. I hear them say they can’t afford more police (or even full staffing). I say, you can’t afford not to have more police. It’s the usual, penny-wise, pound foolish scenario, and I hope Chief Batts is better at getting the message across than I’ve been.
Chief Batts was also very, very clear about his position on the size of the current police force. He repeatedly stated that the force was understaffed (currently at 791, a full 12 officers under the authorized strength), and that Oakland needed way more officers than even the authorized strength of 803. He didn’t want to give his opinion on what he thought would actually be a proper size, because he wanted to study the needs of the department further, and would be reviewing the results of numerous interviews and studies before committing himself to a number. This seemed reasonable and appropriate. But he clearly believes we need more officers than we have, and that department is stretched way too thin. He stated that the current response times are “unacceptable.”
This guy clearly has decades of experience in law enforcement, and has studied the academic literature as well. In addition, he said he took a survey of his entire department, and got hundreds of responses, comments and suggestions. In the months prior to his starting the job, he walked around various parts of Oakland and interviewed random community members. So for those people who claim the answer is not more police, well, I would encourage you to go hear Chief Batts. More police alone is clearly not the answer. We need effective management and leadership too. But effective management and leadership alone is not going to fix things. That’s like sending General MacArthur into battle with no army.
On the subject of Measure Y, he was careful about what he said. He acknowledged the lawsuit, and referenced the fact that his “attorney” was in the audience, who is an “expert” on Measure Y. (Notably, the attorney who he referred to was nobody I have ever dealt with and has had nothing to do with my litigation). He was obviously not a fan of Measure Y, but that’s hardly a surprise. He said he’d clearly rather have more flexibility in assigning officers to where he thought they were needed most. Sorry, Chief, that’s not what we voted for. We voted for a Measure that requires OPD to give each beat their own PSO, and for good reason. And if the City gave OPD a reasonable amount of staff to begin with, the Chief wouldn’t have to feel like he’s in an ethical quandary about not having to pull a PSO out of his/her beat to respond to a 911 call.
Throughout his presentation, Batts stated that the City was telling him there was no money for staff, no money for academies, no money for anything. So he said he “wasn’t going to ask.” Well, he’s brand new to the job and probably is reluctant to start ruffling feathers right off the bat, so that didn’t surprise me either. One of the questions he got went to the issue of how much he thinks he can actually accomplish, and an estimated timeline. He answered the question honestly: he said that without the resources he needs, he really wasn’t sure how much he could do at all. I hope he sends the same message to the City officials who need to hear it. This guy seems good, but he ain’t no miracle worker.
One of the points that he made that I thought merited particular attention included his statement that the police force is the “economic driver” of a city. Without an effective police force, he said, a city cannot be safe, and if the city isn’t safe, people won’t want to live here, and businesses won’t want to do business there either. This is a point I have continuously been trying to make with City leaders. I hear them say they can’t afford more police (or even full staffing). I say, you can’t afford not to have more police. It’s the usual, penny-wise, pound foolish scenario, and I hope Chief Batts is better at getting the message across than I’ve been.
Chief Batts was also very, very clear about his position on the size of the current police force. He repeatedly stated that the force was understaffed (currently at 791, a full 12 officers under the authorized strength), and that Oakland needed way more officers than even the authorized strength of 803. He didn’t want to give his opinion on what he thought would actually be a proper size, because he wanted to study the needs of the department further, and would be reviewing the results of numerous interviews and studies before committing himself to a number. This seemed reasonable and appropriate. But he clearly believes we need more officers than we have, and that department is stretched way too thin. He stated that the current response times are “unacceptable.”
This guy clearly has decades of experience in law enforcement, and has studied the academic literature as well. In addition, he said he took a survey of his entire department, and got hundreds of responses, comments and suggestions. In the months prior to his starting the job, he walked around various parts of Oakland and interviewed random community members. So for those people who claim the answer is not more police, well, I would encourage you to go hear Chief Batts. More police alone is clearly not the answer. We need effective management and leadership too. But effective management and leadership alone is not going to fix things. That’s like sending General MacArthur into battle with no army.
On the subject of Measure Y, he was careful about what he said. He acknowledged the lawsuit, and referenced the fact that his “attorney” was in the audience, who is an “expert” on Measure Y. (Notably, the attorney who he referred to was nobody I have ever dealt with and has had nothing to do with my litigation). He was obviously not a fan of Measure Y, but that’s hardly a surprise. He said he’d clearly rather have more flexibility in assigning officers to where he thought they were needed most. Sorry, Chief, that’s not what we voted for. We voted for a Measure that requires OPD to give each beat their own PSO, and for good reason. And if the City gave OPD a reasonable amount of staff to begin with, the Chief wouldn’t have to feel like he’s in an ethical quandary about not having to pull a PSO out of his/her beat to respond to a 911 call.
Throughout his presentation, Batts stated that the City was telling him there was no money for staff, no money for academies, no money for anything. So he said he “wasn’t going to ask.” Well, he’s brand new to the job and probably is reluctant to start ruffling feathers right off the bat, so that didn’t surprise me either. One of the questions he got went to the issue of how much he thinks he can actually accomplish, and an estimated timeline. He answered the question honestly: he said that without the resources he needs, he really wasn’t sure how much he could do at all. I hope he sends the same message to the City officials who need to hear it. This guy seems good, but he ain’t no miracle worker.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
New Measure Y Evaluation Report Released: More Bad News
The new Measure Y evaluation report, prepared by Resource Development Associates, has just been issued, and it is depressing on so many levels. Most annoying to me is that the authors get patently wrong some basic information regarding the requirements of Measure Y, like the actual staffing requirements. According to the cover page of the report, practically everybody who works for RDA has a PhD or masters degree. And yet, somehow they weren’t able to read Measure Y or understand what it requires. It also appears that they either failed to read the judge’s decision in my lawsuit, or misinterpreted that as well. The inaccurate information on these basic issues makes me distrust the level of effort and accuracy in the remainder of the report. But assuming that they got at least the gist correctly, it appears that in the years since Measure Y passed, crime went way up (except for the time the size of the force started to increase), the police department couldn’t keep track of how the money was spent, and couldn’t manage to properly staff many beats with regular and consistent PSOs. The report is supposed to be discussed at Monday’s meeting. I’m not sure if I can make it, but I plan to communicate, one way or the other, the following points:
1. Credibility Lost By Brownnosing: So RDA of course got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare this tome. They want to keep the business, and not alienate the people who chose them to be the “independent evaluator.“ So the report starts off with an acknowledgement to all the biggest bunglers of Measure Y, with the verbal equivalent of a big sloppy kiss. Given the total disaster that Measure Y has been, this just makes me want to gag. With reference to Jeff Baker, they thank him for his “guidance and unwavering dedication to this evaluation and to Measure Y.” Ha! More like, “thanks for giving us this lucrative contract and we’ll make sure we don’t blame you for the fact that we couldn’t get half the information we needed and that you can’t seem to ensure implementation of the most basic provisions of the Measure or catch the numerous errors in this report!”
2. RDA Doesn’t Understand Measure Y’s Staffing Requirements
Measure Y requires an “integrated program…in accordance with the following specific purposes: Hire and maintain at least a total of 63 police officers assigned to the following specific community policing objectives:
A. Neighborhood beat officers….
B. School Safety: supplement police services available to respond to school safety and truancy;
C. Crime reduction team: at least 6 of the total officers to investigate and respond to illegal narcotic transactions and commission of violent crimes in identified violence hot spots;
D. Domestic violence and child abuse intervention: additional officers to team with social service providers to intervene in situations of domestic violence and child abuse, including child prostitution.”
Notably, the RDA report includes information ONLY about staffing of the neighborhood beat officers, referred to as problem solving officers or “PSOs.” It includes no information whatsoever regarding the City’s compliance with staffing the other positions. Why? Because there is no evidence the City EVER complied with the remainder of the legal staffing obligations.
The authors go out of their way (p.4) to compliment the City on compliance by filling “63 Public Safety Officers (PSOs)” Okay, bozos, “PSO” stands for “problem solving officer,” not “public safety officer.” Moreover, there are only 57 beats in Oakland, so there are not 63 PSOs. The “highlights” section contains “key findings” that the City achieved “full implementation of Measure Y staffing levels….” However, the failure to address the CRTs, school safety officers, and domestic violence officers is a glaring omission.
Worse yet, on page 6 of the community policing portion of the report, the authors contend that “a judicial decision delivered on June 16, 2009 affirmed that as of September, 2008 Oakland had successfully assigned a PSO to each beat in the City.” Sorry, but a review of the Statement of Decision includes no such language AT ALL. This claim is so at odds with the ruling that again, it casts doubt on the credibility of the remainder of the report.
3. The RDA Report Fails To Provide Meaningful Analysis on Whether PSOs Were Properly Assigned Solely to Serve The Residents of Their Beats
The judge’s decision held that while Measure Y clearly requires that PSOs be assigned to serve “solely” the residents of their beats, Measure Y is not violated “when, on occasion, a PSO might lend assistance to a fellow officer working outside his or her beat….Measure Y does not require that a PSO to [sic] remain within the geographic confines of the beat at all times or proscribe the flexibility needed by the police department to call a PSO to assist elsewhere.”
The report notes (on pages 7-9) that there were some beats that did not have a regularly assigned PSO, and that their beats were covered only intermittently. The report also indicates that “researchers were unable to conduct a quantitative analysis of the amount of time and nature of work on beat business due to limitations in the Department’s data collection system.” The report also noted a shortage of patrol vehicles, and anecdotal comments such as, “my guys share a car. So, they split their time between the two beats.” However, RDA researchers should have followed up on this issue by interviewing PSOs and asking them point blank how much time they actually spend serving the residents of their beats, and if it’s not 100%, why not. But the researchers didn’t do that. Why not? My guess is, they were asked not to, to prevent giving me fodder for my next lawsuit.
4. The City’s Expenditure Tracking of Measure Y Funds Is Disastrous; Report Fails To Address Primary Holding In My Lawsuit
The report correctly concludes that the OPD’s records of how Measure Y funds are spent are abysmal. Okay, they didn’t actually use that language, but that’s the gist. But what is worse is that the report utterly fails to address the fact that the judge ruled that the City misspent Measure Y funds for recruitment and hiring of officers never placed into Measure Y positions. The report fails to address how much money is at issue, and/or the fact that the state of OPD recordkeeping is so bad that it is virtually impossible to tell how much money is at issue. Instead, the report falsely claims that: “The June 16th court ruling determined that fiscal reports provided by OPD were insufficient to verify training expenditures….” Excuse me? The holding said nothing of the kind. Where they got this information is completely beyond me, and this is the sort of error that Jeff Baker clearly should have caught before the report was finalized.
5. The Report Fails To Draw Obvious Conclusions between police staffing and crime
The report includes extensive charts of crime in the city, by area and type of crime, over the last four years. Basically, it shows a steady increase in crime since 2004 through 2008, when finally crime began to drop in most areas. Notably, the size of the police force was also dropping during most of this period, and finally started going up in 2008. The authors of the report clearly should have tried to do some connecting of the dots, but at least there’s some data there that maybe the chief and his consultants can use to support the need for additional officers, or at least the staffing currently required by law.
6. The Report Completely Fails To Address Fire Department Requirements
Measure Y very clearly requires that with the funds the fire department receives, it must establish a mentorship program at every station house, and “expand” paramedic services. Now, I have already done a public records act request to determine whether the City ever bothered to comply with this requirement, and so far, it looks like it never did. But the evaluator’s report needs to address the community policing, violence prevention, and fire department components of the measure. There is no discussion of the fire department whatsoever. This is a glaring omission, and again, makes me doubt the credibility and thoroughness of the authors, as well as the competence of Jeff Baker in not catching this obvious error. Alternatively, I would suspect that the omission was intentional, again, for the purpose of omitting information I could use in a subsequent lawsuit.
1. Credibility Lost By Brownnosing: So RDA of course got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare this tome. They want to keep the business, and not alienate the people who chose them to be the “independent evaluator.“ So the report starts off with an acknowledgement to all the biggest bunglers of Measure Y, with the verbal equivalent of a big sloppy kiss. Given the total disaster that Measure Y has been, this just makes me want to gag. With reference to Jeff Baker, they thank him for his “guidance and unwavering dedication to this evaluation and to Measure Y.” Ha! More like, “thanks for giving us this lucrative contract and we’ll make sure we don’t blame you for the fact that we couldn’t get half the information we needed and that you can’t seem to ensure implementation of the most basic provisions of the Measure or catch the numerous errors in this report!”
2. RDA Doesn’t Understand Measure Y’s Staffing Requirements
Measure Y requires an “integrated program…in accordance with the following specific purposes: Hire and maintain at least a total of 63 police officers assigned to the following specific community policing objectives:
A. Neighborhood beat officers….
B. School Safety: supplement police services available to respond to school safety and truancy;
C. Crime reduction team: at least 6 of the total officers to investigate and respond to illegal narcotic transactions and commission of violent crimes in identified violence hot spots;
D. Domestic violence and child abuse intervention: additional officers to team with social service providers to intervene in situations of domestic violence and child abuse, including child prostitution.”
Notably, the RDA report includes information ONLY about staffing of the neighborhood beat officers, referred to as problem solving officers or “PSOs.” It includes no information whatsoever regarding the City’s compliance with staffing the other positions. Why? Because there is no evidence the City EVER complied with the remainder of the legal staffing obligations.
The authors go out of their way (p.4) to compliment the City on compliance by filling “63 Public Safety Officers (PSOs)” Okay, bozos, “PSO” stands for “problem solving officer,” not “public safety officer.” Moreover, there are only 57 beats in Oakland, so there are not 63 PSOs. The “highlights” section contains “key findings” that the City achieved “full implementation of Measure Y staffing levels….” However, the failure to address the CRTs, school safety officers, and domestic violence officers is a glaring omission.
Worse yet, on page 6 of the community policing portion of the report, the authors contend that “a judicial decision delivered on June 16, 2009 affirmed that as of September, 2008 Oakland had successfully assigned a PSO to each beat in the City.” Sorry, but a review of the Statement of Decision includes no such language AT ALL. This claim is so at odds with the ruling that again, it casts doubt on the credibility of the remainder of the report.
3. The RDA Report Fails To Provide Meaningful Analysis on Whether PSOs Were Properly Assigned Solely to Serve The Residents of Their Beats
The judge’s decision held that while Measure Y clearly requires that PSOs be assigned to serve “solely” the residents of their beats, Measure Y is not violated “when, on occasion, a PSO might lend assistance to a fellow officer working outside his or her beat….Measure Y does not require that a PSO to [sic] remain within the geographic confines of the beat at all times or proscribe the flexibility needed by the police department to call a PSO to assist elsewhere.”
The report notes (on pages 7-9) that there were some beats that did not have a regularly assigned PSO, and that their beats were covered only intermittently. The report also indicates that “researchers were unable to conduct a quantitative analysis of the amount of time and nature of work on beat business due to limitations in the Department’s data collection system.” The report also noted a shortage of patrol vehicles, and anecdotal comments such as, “my guys share a car. So, they split their time between the two beats.” However, RDA researchers should have followed up on this issue by interviewing PSOs and asking them point blank how much time they actually spend serving the residents of their beats, and if it’s not 100%, why not. But the researchers didn’t do that. Why not? My guess is, they were asked not to, to prevent giving me fodder for my next lawsuit.
4. The City’s Expenditure Tracking of Measure Y Funds Is Disastrous; Report Fails To Address Primary Holding In My Lawsuit
The report correctly concludes that the OPD’s records of how Measure Y funds are spent are abysmal. Okay, they didn’t actually use that language, but that’s the gist. But what is worse is that the report utterly fails to address the fact that the judge ruled that the City misspent Measure Y funds for recruitment and hiring of officers never placed into Measure Y positions. The report fails to address how much money is at issue, and/or the fact that the state of OPD recordkeeping is so bad that it is virtually impossible to tell how much money is at issue. Instead, the report falsely claims that: “The June 16th court ruling determined that fiscal reports provided by OPD were insufficient to verify training expenditures….” Excuse me? The holding said nothing of the kind. Where they got this information is completely beyond me, and this is the sort of error that Jeff Baker clearly should have caught before the report was finalized.
5. The Report Fails To Draw Obvious Conclusions between police staffing and crime
The report includes extensive charts of crime in the city, by area and type of crime, over the last four years. Basically, it shows a steady increase in crime since 2004 through 2008, when finally crime began to drop in most areas. Notably, the size of the police force was also dropping during most of this period, and finally started going up in 2008. The authors of the report clearly should have tried to do some connecting of the dots, but at least there’s some data there that maybe the chief and his consultants can use to support the need for additional officers, or at least the staffing currently required by law.
6. The Report Completely Fails To Address Fire Department Requirements
Measure Y very clearly requires that with the funds the fire department receives, it must establish a mentorship program at every station house, and “expand” paramedic services. Now, I have already done a public records act request to determine whether the City ever bothered to comply with this requirement, and so far, it looks like it never did. But the evaluator’s report needs to address the community policing, violence prevention, and fire department components of the measure. There is no discussion of the fire department whatsoever. This is a glaring omission, and again, makes me doubt the credibility and thoroughness of the authors, as well as the competence of Jeff Baker in not catching this obvious error. Alternatively, I would suspect that the omission was intentional, again, for the purpose of omitting information I could use in a subsequent lawsuit.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Clark Kent, We Need You!
Last week, one of the biggest scandals surrounding our increasingly incompetent mayor broke. It appears that he owes nearly $240,000 in back federal income taxes, and a lien has been placed on his personal property. By all accounts, this is a last resort by the IRS, and it means that the problem has been going on for years, and that numerous notices were sent to him, which presumably were ignored. How did this come to light? I’m sure Bob Gammon would love to take credit. But in reality, it was Charles Pine, public safety advocate and activist, and my predecessor in suing the City over Measure Y abuses. Apparently he happened to be at the County Recorder’s office and on a lark, checked the records, and lo and behold - scoop of the year! Which makes me wonder - why does it take gadflies like Pine to get the information we citizens need in order to police our own government?
Students of 18th century western civilization may recall the quote of British politician Edmund Burke, referring to the press gallery, “Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.” Without an effective Fourth Estate, public and private power cannot be held accountable. Of course, litigation can be effective, but it is a slow and expensive process. A well researched and well timed piece of investigative journalism can accomplish desired goals (like removing corrupt or inept politicians from office) way quicker and more effectively.
But where are our local investigative reporters? Where are the hard questions? Where is the real analysis? Where are the biting editorials? Is the local media so concerned about maintaining its political correctness, and perhaps offending readers, that it has forgotten its obligation to society as a whole? The issues raised in my lawsuit highlighted fundamental questions about our elected officials’ integrity and commitment to the law, about competence, and about accountability. My lawsuit involved, and still does involve, tens of millions of dollars - far more than the infamous “Negotiated Settlement Agreement.” And yet, the press coverage has not been what it should have been. Now, of course, I’m sure every activist trying to promote his or her cause may complain about the same thing, but I found the coverage positively anemic. The questions that most reporters asked me were pretty lame, if they bothered to even call me at all. Some of the issues involved are kind of complicated, but so what? You think analyzing the health care reform bills is easy? All the more reason the media should analyze the issues more carefully, to come up with more incisive questions, so that we are all better informed.
Our current mayor bungles an officer’s name at a funeral. Subsequently, officers killed in the line of duty specifically ask that Dellums not speak at their funerals. He can’t manage to drive himself to work. He refuses to make his calendars public, and when he finally does, they reveal he is frequently unaccounted for. In his over two years as mayor, he has apparently accomplished nothing, other than preside over one of the biggest budget disasters in history. His wife sticks to him like glue and intimidates and alienates his detractors. His answer to sideshows: make them legal. And now this - he’s up to his eyeballs in debt, and appears not to open his mail, or understand it. And the only person publicly connecting the dots - Charlie Pine! (www.orpn.org). Okay, so whether the mayor has dementia is a sensitive subject. But if he can’t function, shouldn’t the press be looking into this? Or somebody?
Our local newspapers complain about declining circulation and depressing revenues. But here the emperor is marching down the street naked, the little boy is saying, "the emperor is wearing no clothes," and it doesn't even make page five! If the papers aren't doing their job, why should we pay for them? Go dig for the real news like you used to, deliver us a quality product, with critical analysis, not just parroting of press releases, and maybe we’d be willing shell out a few more sheckels. Remember, without Clark Kent, there can be no Superman.
Students of 18th century western civilization may recall the quote of British politician Edmund Burke, referring to the press gallery, “Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.” Without an effective Fourth Estate, public and private power cannot be held accountable. Of course, litigation can be effective, but it is a slow and expensive process. A well researched and well timed piece of investigative journalism can accomplish desired goals (like removing corrupt or inept politicians from office) way quicker and more effectively.
But where are our local investigative reporters? Where are the hard questions? Where is the real analysis? Where are the biting editorials? Is the local media so concerned about maintaining its political correctness, and perhaps offending readers, that it has forgotten its obligation to society as a whole? The issues raised in my lawsuit highlighted fundamental questions about our elected officials’ integrity and commitment to the law, about competence, and about accountability. My lawsuit involved, and still does involve, tens of millions of dollars - far more than the infamous “Negotiated Settlement Agreement.” And yet, the press coverage has not been what it should have been. Now, of course, I’m sure every activist trying to promote his or her cause may complain about the same thing, but I found the coverage positively anemic. The questions that most reporters asked me were pretty lame, if they bothered to even call me at all. Some of the issues involved are kind of complicated, but so what? You think analyzing the health care reform bills is easy? All the more reason the media should analyze the issues more carefully, to come up with more incisive questions, so that we are all better informed.
Our current mayor bungles an officer’s name at a funeral. Subsequently, officers killed in the line of duty specifically ask that Dellums not speak at their funerals. He can’t manage to drive himself to work. He refuses to make his calendars public, and when he finally does, they reveal he is frequently unaccounted for. In his over two years as mayor, he has apparently accomplished nothing, other than preside over one of the biggest budget disasters in history. His wife sticks to him like glue and intimidates and alienates his detractors. His answer to sideshows: make them legal. And now this - he’s up to his eyeballs in debt, and appears not to open his mail, or understand it. And the only person publicly connecting the dots - Charlie Pine! (www.orpn.org). Okay, so whether the mayor has dementia is a sensitive subject. But if he can’t function, shouldn’t the press be looking into this? Or somebody?
Our local newspapers complain about declining circulation and depressing revenues. But here the emperor is marching down the street naked, the little boy is saying, "the emperor is wearing no clothes," and it doesn't even make page five! If the papers aren't doing their job, why should we pay for them? Go dig for the real news like you used to, deliver us a quality product, with critical analysis, not just parroting of press releases, and maybe we’d be willing shell out a few more sheckels. Remember, without Clark Kent, there can be no Superman.
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