Oakland's mayor politicks as people are killed

Oakland's mayor politicks as people are killed
Chip Johnson
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/15/BA54V2SJ2.DTL

Friday, February 15, 2008

Here's Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' schedule after a string of homicides left seven people dead and five others wounded last weekend:

On Monday, he issued a deeply inspirational statement in response to the killings, calling for leadership to explore new ways of putting police officers on the street.

"We need creative and intensified efforts to get public safety officers into our neighborhoods now," Dellums said in a prepared statement.

Good idea, Mr. Mayor, but isn't that your job?

He made no public appearances in Oakland, because he had flown to Washington, D.C., the day before, to spend a week attending federal appropriation hearings there.

I'm sure he was lobbying Congress on behalf of Oakland residents, working on firming up the federal funding that is supposed to save us.

Later on Monday, another man was gunned down - the eighth slaying in four days. In the six weeks since the start of the year, 21 people have been slain in Oakland.

It would seem that a string of events like that would grab the attention of a responsible CEO - and it would. The problem is that Oakland's self-described CEO has been neither responsive nor responsible, and it seems he has more important business.

On Tuesday, Dellums was scheduled to deliver a speech at American University, said David Chai, the mayor's chief of staff.

Fortunately, Dellums' trip back to the Beltway converged harmonically with Tuesday's presidential primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. What a strange coincidence.

And as the senior urban policy adviser to New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, it's important to show support as your candidate is slipping in the polls. I mean, it's not as if those dead guys back home are going anywhere.

But when Dellums is traveling, residents can rest easy knowing that the city's bureaucracy, led by City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, is in charge.

On the heels of the city's eighth homicide in four days, Edgerly's office announced that the city, in response to complaints from local florists, would enforce a zero-tolerance policy on illegal street vendors on Valentine's Day.

Police officers and city employees would be assigned to foot patrols and issue citations to any street vendor without a permit, she said. Some police officers shook their heads, while others just laughed. Leaders in the business community were speechless.

As for me, I'm surprised that the city would approve such a bold plan to take back the streets.

Bringing the hammer down on street vendors, many of them illegal immigrants trying to scratch out an honest living, while armed gunmen control the night is an insult to citizens and total ineptitude from our city officials. It's not what city residents want to hear.

The one thing you can be sure of is that the move didn't come from Dellums - or receive his approval - because he wasn't around to weigh in.

On Thursday, Dellums, the former East Bay congressman, was back on Capitol Hill, attending a memorial for Rep. Tom Lantos, the San Mateo Democrat who died this week of cancer. The same day, two more people were shot in East Oakland.

The strain of Dellums' absences and his continued failure to act when action is what's needed are starting to converge in a decidedly non-harmonic way.

The majority of the eight-person Oakland City Council admits there is no relationship, coordination or communication between them and Dellums' office.

One council member persuaded "shot-callers" within the city's street drug trade to meet with Dellums to discuss ways to curb the violence but has been unable to schedule the meeting for more than a month.

"He's just never around," said the council member, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Dellums also appears to be losing the support of the only other local politicians he would consider his peers in terms of influence and experience - state Attorney General Jerry Brown, Oakland's two-term mayor before Dellums, state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente.

Brown remains reluctant to meet with Dellums - and be put on the spot to deliver - until someone within Oakland City Hall presents him with a plan on how any additional state officers would be used in the city.

He is a bit incredulous after offering his agency's help to analyze the city's backlog of fingerprints and receiving not even a return phone call from Dellums' office.

Perata, who was carjacked at gunpoint in Oakland last month, has also struck out on his own to address the issue of mounting crime in Oakland. Perata sponsored a successful gun buyback last weekend and has plans to do more - and who could blame him?

He will be termed out of office next year and has his own future to look out for - and if Dellums isn't up to the job, his seat might be a good fit for a veteran East Bay politician.

De La Fuente said he has met with the mayor about crime issues for months, but nothing has happened.

"If we can't get a hold on this (crime) thing, it's going to sink all of us," he said.

I agree. Let's start with you first, Mr. Mayor.

Chip Johnson's column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at chjohnson [at] sfchronicle.com.