Alternate front to Write-In draft

VICENTE CRUZ

Candidate for Oakland

City Council People's District 6

November 4, 2014

Your voice

Your community

 

HOW I will deal with Public Safety

I believe we have looked at public safety from a perspective that our current approach has not worked. The proof is the Recidivism, the failing of half our students, and the violence that comes from poverty that effects disproportionally people of color. I will bring forth an approach of education, employment, and health as a priority to public safety. Policing has long been an issue around public safety. We spend millions on police misconduct, now more than ever we need community policing. I would advocate for any new police are hired from Oakland also we need a real police commission independent from internal affairs. Not to have police accountability costs us in the most expensive way possible because we have lost community trust and support.

 

• Keep youth away from crime thru job training education

• Police commission with the power to terminate police officers

• Responsible overtime distribution

• Review and secure pension programs
• Work with communities most affected with the greatest needs

Do some of this housekeeping and then the cost of hiring more officers would not be the multimillion dollar hamster wheel that it is now and we could expand staff with the support of the public and enough funds to hire them. First, the public needs to feel that our police are held up to a high ethical standard and that they work for us and not the other way around.  If we do not feel that the police serve us, why pay the cost? Now people want to outsource police services and rent private police?  What will that cost? And the cost of employing people who will not live in our city should be brought into account. That costs us in trust, in support and in flat dollars.  Why are we hiring people who do not want to live here?