Have you ever wondered:
- What do police really spend their time doing?
- How much do they make, and why do they get paid so much?
- Could we shrink OPD and make Oakland an even safer, better place to live?
The process of allocating Oakland’s 2.6 billion dollar budget for 2017-2019 has begun. We believe that the scandal-ridden and dysfunctional Oakland Police Department consumes far too many of our city’s resources. It’s time to audit police spending and performance, and redirect wasted funds to community-building, constructive strategies for making Oakland a safer and better place to live.
Our Demands:
- INDEPENDENT AND THOROUGH COST SAVINGS AND PERFORMANCE AUDIT OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT
- DEFUND OPD BY 50%
PLEASE COME OUT TO YOUR LOCAL BUDGET FORUM:
Monday May 8, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Abel Guillen
St Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave
Wednesday May 10, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Annie Campbell
Bret Harte Middle School, 3700 Coolidge Ave
Saturday May 13, 10am-12pm, Councilmembers Lynette McElhaney & Dan Kalb
Beebe Memorial Church, 3900 Telegraph Ave
Wednesday May 17, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmembers Larry Reid & Rebecca Kaplan
Oakland Zoo- Snow Building, 9777 Golf Links Road
Thursday May 18, 6-8pm, Councilmember Desley Brooks
Eastmont Police Dept. Substation, 2651 73rd Ave
Monday May 22, 6-8pm, Councilmember Lynette McElhaney
West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St
Thursday May 25, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Abel Guillen
Lincoln Rec Center, 261 11th St. (cantonese interpretation)
Defund OPD will be at each of these budget meetings with information about the police budget, questions to ask, and our demands! Please show up 15 minutes early if possible. More information is available at defundopd.org.
#DefundOPD
In the last few weeks we’ve built a ton of momentum and had some significant successes:
-With incredible and wide-ranging community support, we’ve succeeded in making sure that the city’s outrageous and unaccountable spending on police is the #1 topic of discussion at every single city council member budget forum.
-We’ve already gotten the mayor to stand down from her effort to increase the police force to 800 officers, and now the discussion is turning to maintaining the current staffing levels (near 750) instead of the fully budgeted levels (792).
-We’ve gotten almost every council member to commit, on the record, to supporting an independent, thorough audit of police spending, and the city auditor’s office is on board.
-We’ve built a huge amount of synergy and mutual support with dozens of organizations who are calling for various budget priorities that will ACTUALLY make Oakland a safer and more just city — and many of them are now making explicit connections between the bloated police budget and the lack of funding for these crucial measures to support housing affordability, education, homeless services, youth programs and employment, and cultural initiatives.
The last two city council members are hosting meetings TONIGHT and THURSDAY NIGHT!
Monday May 22, 6-8pm, Councilmember Lynette McElhaney
West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St
Thursday May 25, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Abel Guillen
Lincoln Rec Center, 261 11th St. (cantonese interpretation)
For those of you looking for ways to plug in, here’s what we could use right now:
1) come out tonight and/or thursday if you can, and mobilize others to come!
2) Post to social media with the hashtag #DefundOPD and tag Defund OPD in your posts on facebook.
3) Email budgetsuggestions@oaklandnet.c om with our demand: Defund OPD, invest in community. Feel free to reach out if you want to collaborate on more specific verbiage – or just mention the budget priorities that matter to you, and state that you’d like the $ to come out of the police budget (Please cc defundopd@gmail.com)