SLPD

San Leandro Candidates Position on COPS Grant

San Leandro Candidates Position on COPS Grant Police, Politics, Schools No Responses »

Oct 302014

sro The San Leandro Police Department applied for a $500,000 COPS grant to fund a total of four school resource officers (SRO’s). The SLPD, however, neglected to let the City Council and the School Board know that they would be on the hook for $1.69 million in matching funds. Any money spent on the SROs would have to be diverted from other uses. In the case of the school district, it might mean further cutting educational programs and not being able to restore counselors and nurses.

I contacted candidates for Mayor, City Council and School Board to ascertain how they would vote on this grant.

SCHOOL BOARD

At-Large Seat

Candidates Jeanne Kinkella and Peter Oshinski are both in favor of accepting the COPS grant and having the school district pay the whole $1.69 million.

Candidate Evelyn Gonzalez believes that the the City should continue to pay for the two current SROs, and that the District should not spend money on the officers.

Candidate Monique Tate did not respond to my request for her position on this issue.

Area 4 Seat

Candidate Leo Sheridan said he did not support the District paying the full $1.69 million but he did not specify how it should be split. He does support keeping just two SROs at the district.

Candidates Chike Udemezue and Latrina Dumas did not respond to my request for their positions on this issue.

MAYOR

Diana Souza favors accepting the grant and splitting he $1.69 million costs between the City and the school district. She did not specify on what ratio. She is endorsed by the Police union.

Dan Dillman opposes the school district accepting the grant, but believes that if it does, it should pay the full amount.

Pauline Cutter supports maintaining the status quo, with the City funding two SROs. If the School District wants more than two, Cutter believes the District should pay for the additional officers.

Gregg Daly opposes accepting the grant.

CITY COUNCIL

District 1

David Anderson favors accepting the grant and splitting the costs between the City Council and the School District.

Mike Katz-Lacabe opposes accepting the grant and notes that research has found SROs do not make schools safer

Deborah Cox and Ken Pon would not take a public stance on this issue. Cox is endorsed by the Police union.

District 3

Lee Thomas favors accepting the grant and splitting the costs between the City Council and the School District. He is endorsed by the Police union.

Allen Schoenfeld and Victor Aguilar favor maintaining the status quo, with the City continuing to pay for the two existing SROs.

District 5

Corina Lopez believes it’s the responsibility of the City, not the school district, to pay for law enforcement. She did not specify whether the City should continue paying for the two existing SROs or accept the grant and pay the whole $1.69 million to bring them up to four.

Mia Ousley opposes accepting the grant.

Leah Hall would not take a public stance on this issue.

San Leandro City Council Meeting Notes: Homelessness & COPS Grant

San Leandro City Council Meeting Notes: Homelessness & COPS Grant City Hall, Police, Schools No Responses »

Oct 302014

Notes The San Leandro City Council eliminated full minutes of Council meetings several years ago. To make up for this, and keep San Leandrans informed of what the Council is up to, Mike Katz-Lacabe tweets from the meetings. I’ve started compiling his tweets on this blog. You can follow Mike’s tweets at @slbytes.

These are the meetings from the 10/20/14 meeting. The Council voted on whether to accept the COPS grant. This provides $500K to fund four school resource officers, but requires the San Leandro School district to pay $1.7 million in matching funds. The following day, the School Board tabled the vote on whether to accept the grant until November 18th. Mike Katz-Lacabe spoke both at the City Council and School Board meeting against accepting the grant.

According to presentation at San Leandro City Council, San Leandro Hospital had positive revenue in June and July 2014.

Cleophus Quealy joins the San Leandro brewery cluster (soft opening Nov. 1)

Proposed updates to San Leandro’s Casa Peralta: $75k for interior and $225k for exterior – inc. broken tile repair at front wall/fountain
The proposal for the kitchen was along the lines of authentic for the era – not a modern restaurant-grade kitchen

San Leandro History Walk videos now available at http://www.sanleandro.org/about/hwv/default.asp Videos done by Arroyo High student Jordan Schultz.

Homeless

San Leandro’s Homeless Task Force has met 4 times so far. Liz Varela (Bldg Futures) & Rose Johnson (Davis Street) are co-chairs.

San Leandro Homeless Task Force recommends $62k to homeless services from $150k allocated to Building Futures, which got state funding.

Liz Varela of Building Futures estimates that there are 50 chronically homeless people in San Leandro.

COPS Grant

Item 10B on COPS grant for 4 additional school resource officers has been moved up the schedule for the San Leandro City Council meeting.

San Leandro’s COPS grant calls for experienced officer for the positions – this means non-entry-level officers.

Current school resource officers assigned to San Leandro Unified are Cathy Pickard and Tom Rogers.

The proposal is for four total officers – not six. As for why four? Haven’t heard the reasoning about that yet.

SLUSD Deputy Sup. Rosanna Mucetti note that paying for San Leandro police officers takes money away from classroom.

San Leandro Teachers Association President Jon Sherr says COPS grant subsidizes police department & could be spent in students.

San Leandro Board member Corina Lopez asks City Council to table vote on COPS grant until School Board considers the matter.

Parent of San Leandro kindergarten student doesn’t want funds vital to schools being spent on police officers.

Mayor Cassidy notes that the staff report on COPS grant isn’t quite accurate – but still results in zero net cost to San Leandro.

Mayor Cassidy recommends that City Council conditionally accept the COPS grant, but consider a more fair division of costs.

In response to City Council member Ursula Reed, San Leandro PD notes that previous grant for 5 officers expires Dec. 2014. City has to pay full cost for 4th year.

San Leandro City Council member Cutter expresses concern that school resource officers would be eliminated. SLPD Chief says yes, because of grant expiration.

San Leandro City Manager Zapata says there are currently 90 officers – grant would add 4. Says no officers cut when budgets previously cut.

San Leandro City Council member Prola will vote in favor of the resolution and let City Manager Zapata figure out the financial terms.

SLPD Chief says there are 90,000 calls annually. Says 40% of crime is related to juveniles.

San Leandro City Council member Souza says school district has received more money while City has not. Asks if school district has previously paid for police

San Leandro Mayor Cassidy making strong case for City paying most of cost of officers and suddenly ending city paying for school officers.

School Board Tables Vote on Spending $1.7 million To Put Police in Schools

School Board Tables Vote on Spending $1.7 million To Put Police in Schools Police, Schools 1 Response »

Oct 222014

The following are tweets from last night’s San Leandro School Board meeting, made by parent Mia Ousley (@Mia4Council), who is currently running for City Council District 5. The SLPD applied for a $500K COPS grant to put four resource officers in San Leandro schools. In return, the district would have to pay $1.7 million dollars, and cut programs accordingly. In addition to the people quoted below, several other parents and several teachers/counselors/nurses also spoke out against accepting the grant. The student trustee – who does not get a vote – did so as well. Only Board members Diana Prola and Ron Carey spoke in favor (but see comment below).

Any parent who is concerned about using education money to fund police officers and/or has an opinion on what educational programs should be cut/not restored in order to pay for them, should speak out at the Nov. 18th School Board meeting and e-mail the Board.

For more information please e-mail School Board member Mike Katz-Lacabe: mkatz@slusd.us

Tweets from the School Board meeting

Evelyn Gonzalez approves of School Resource Officers, just asks for city to foot most of the bill.

Jessica Sievert – Mom of kindergardener, our work is to help change trajectory of at-risk youth so we don’t need police in schools.
Feels district is being forced to pay, district’s hand is being twisted. Feels politically inappropriate way to allocate money.
Any funding for students should not be pulled from other education resources to fund this.

Cynthia Chandler — Letter from district said Bancroft so deficient that parents have right to transfer out of district, so why spend money on police rather than on getting resources needed in classrooms and for teachers.

Liz Torres – 3 kids in 3rd, 6th, and 12th grade. We need safety and resources in schools, not more police.
$1.69 million should go to programs that uplift and inspire our children and prevent violence, not react to it.
Policing campuses is wrong direction and is misuse of our funds. After-school programs are what we need more of, what helps kids.

[School Board Trustee] Mike Katz-Lacabe – We have 1.8 nurses for 8800 students, this will prevent us from restoring cuts made in the past.
Doesn’t want to establish a precedent for the district funding SROs, outstanding Cathy Pickard notwithstanding.
Yet to see data showing SROs increase safety. Anecdotes are not evidence.
How many of our students get arrested instead of receiving school discipline and what is their racial make-up? We (the school board) should NOT approve this grant.

[Mia Ousley‘s] own statement — do not accept this grant because: (1) $$ needed for counselors, after-school programs, supplies, etc. – not police
(2) Hiring police to do job of counselors is harmful to students, and expensive to district.
(3) $1.7 million over 4 years is $106,250/year/officer . . . seems we’re paying MOST of their cost, not just some.
(4) Police shouldn’t help run student groups or after school programs, as the grant requires.
(5) Adding police to schools sends message that we expect kids to get into trouble.
(6) District should instead be teaching non-violent communication, implementing restorative justice, and hiring trained counselors.
And finally (7) It’s shameful this issue didn’t come before parents BEFORE SLPD applied for grant & BEFORE City Council voted on it.

Motion tabled ’til Nov. 18 meeting. Board President [Lance James] wants to give supporters a chance for public input to counter tonight’s public speakers.
Trustee Diana Prola only one to vote NO on tabling, saying “We need to have the cojones to vote the way we think.”
My opponent for City Council [Corina Lopez] was the only Trustee not to speak on the issue at all; perhaps she didn’t want to say anything controversial?

Mayoral Candidates on the Issues. Sort of…

Mayoral Candidates on the Issues. Sort of… Politics 2 Responses »

Sep 172014

In the last week there have been two poorly-advertised and poorly-attended Mayoral and City Council candidate fora in San Leandro. Mike Katz-Lacabe tweeted from the Mayoral fora. He’s running for City Council himself, so he couldn’t report on that part of the fora, though he did note some of the “lightening questions” from the first forum.

Update: See also responses to the APA Caucus questionnaire below.

City Council Candidates

All San Leandro City Council candidates favored a marina with small boats – in other words, no support for paying to dredge the channel.

All San Leandro City Council candidates said that they did not support surveillance cameras throughout city. Leah Hall was late so no answer

San Leandro City Council candidate Deborah Cox said she supports marijuana dispensary but spoke against it at June 18, 2012, City Council meeting

All San Leandro City Council candidates say they support marijuana dispensary except Lee Thomas.

All San Leandro City Council candidates support ranked choice voting except Dist. 1 candidates David Anderson & Deborah Cox.

Mayoral Candidates

Dan Dillman says San Leandro’s pressing problem is perception. It’s a beautiful city.

Pauline Cutter says San Leandro’s most pressing problem is economics.

Diana Souza says San Leandro’s most pressing problem are the streets. (The street conditions decreased every year she’s been a Councilmember).

Mayoral candidates on Marina: Cutter: exciting new development planned. Dillman: what voters want. Souza: new restaurants, hotel, conference center

San Leandro mayor candidate Souza asks for other candidates’ views on rent stabilization. Cutter: we need to consider. Dillman: what voters want.

San Leandro mayoral candidates on city staffing: Souza & Cutter: more cops. Dillman: use police from CHP, BART, Sheriff, Parks.

San Leandro mayoral candidate Diana Souza says working poor can be helped by recreational programs for youth, seniors and adults.

Breaking news: All San Leandro mayoral candidates support transparency at City Hall. Cutter & Dillman mention improving meeting minutes.

San Leandro mayoral candidates on red light cameras: Cutter and Dillman oppose. Souza supports. Thinks they save lives.

San Leandro mayor candidates on SLPD acquisition of armored personnel carrier: Dillman opposed, Cutter researching, Souza supports.

San Leandro mayor candidates on Measure HH: (sales tax increase for 30 years) Dillman opposed to length. Cutter & Souza support HH.

San Leandro Mayoral candidates on whether they support marijuana dispensary: Cutter and Dillman: yes; Souza: No.

San Leandro Mayoral candidates on whether to keep ranked choice voting: Cutter says yes, Souza says no & Dillman says “what voters want.”

San Leandro Mayoral candidates on flying the flag of other countries: Cutter says no, Souza says yes, and Dillman says: whatever voters want.

Note: During the interviews for the Democratic Party endorsement, Souza and Cutter clarified that they are in favor of surveillance cameras, just not throughout the city.

APA Caucus Questionnaires

While many organizations ask candidates to fill out questionnaires, very few actually make the answers public. The Asian Pacific American Democratic Caucus of Alameda County is the exception. Here are the answers from San Leandro Candidates to APA Caucus questionnaires:

San Leandro, Mayor

San Leandro, City Council

District 1

District 3

Lee Thomas

District 5

We Are Ferguson

We Are Ferguson Civil Liberties, Community, Police, Politics 1 Response »

Aug 172014

photo “borrowed” from Think Progress

The New York Times has a story,titled “Around St. Louis, a Circle of Rage” about how police harassment and political ostracism of African-Americans has given fuel to the protests we see in Ferguson. You can substitute “Oakland” or “San Francisco” for St. Louis and get the same story. People of color – mostly, but not exclusively, African-American – are tired of having their children shot and being the object of police harassment.

When you add to these issues, the fact that the middle class is being decimated, that jobs and opportunities for youth are disappearing and that America is no longer a democracy, we have a volatile situation.

The federal government, owned by Wall Street, has responded by militarizing the police and creating a surveillance state to try to identify leaders-in-the-making. As the NYT said in another article, the protests in Ferguson suffer from lack of leadership.

The repression of peaceful protesters and journalists in Ferguson should not be considered casual. It”s intended, at least in part, to serve as a warning to other communities that may rise up and specially to the middle class, which still has something to lose. State terror exists because it works.

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