Jul 15, 2008 1:13 pm US/Pacific
Dellums 'Confident' Police Tax Will Make Ballot
OAKLAND (CBS 5 / BCN) ―
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is "confident" that a majority of the City Council will vote Tuesday to put on the November ballot a measure that would pay for 105 more police officers over the next three years despite opposition from the council's president, a spokesman said.
Michael Hunt, a spokesman for Dellums, said the mayor would meet with City Council members throughout the day to shore up support for the proposed parcel tax, which is on the agenda of the council's meeting at 6 p.m.
In a letter to the City Council last week, Dellums said the initiative calls for hiring an additional 35 police officers and 25 police services technicians for each of the next three years, for a total of 105 new police officers and 75 additional police services technicians.
But City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente said in a statement to Oakland residents that "City Hall should clean up its own house before it taxes yours" and, "There is no way that I can in good conscience support the police services parcel taxes proposed by the mayor and other council members for the November ballot."
De La Fuente said, "The simple reason is that until we here at city hall get our own house in order, we should not be raising taxes on your house. I do not believe that we have earned your confidence in our fiscal responsibility to ask you for more money for police services."
Referring to former City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, who was recently fired by Dellums for possibly interfering in a police investigation of a gang to which her nephew allegedly belongs and allegations that she hired many relatives to work for the city, De La Fuente said, "I am currently working on three critical reform measures to 'clean house,' including a whistleblower ordinance, an anti-nepotism ordinance and a hiring practices audit."
The whistleblower ordinance and the hiring practices audit are on the council's agenda tonight.
De La Fuente told Oakland residents in his statement, "I encourage you to defeat any city parcel tax measure put on the ballot. I need you to help me send a strong message to everyone here in City Hall that we need to clean up our own house first."
Dellums estimates that the annual cost of hiring and maintaining the additional police officers will be about $40 million by the fourth year of collecting the proposed parcel tax.
A single family would pay $107 the first year of the proposed tax and that amount would increase to $267 a year by the third year, according to Dellums.
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