He's the best

IGNACIO DE LA Fuente is hands down the best member of the Oakland City Council. He consistently gets a bad rap from people in Oakland who really know very little about what is going on downtown.

He might be a little rough around the edges for some people's liking, but he is far and away the best on policy, constituent service, economic development and public safety.

Is he perfect? Absolutely not. Is he better than his principal rival, Mario Juarez? Are you kidding? Ten times better on his worst day.

Juarez is in no way, shape or form qualified to be in charge of anyone's money. This guy is bad news and anyone familiar with his record and is paying attention can see through his flimsy facade in about two minutes.

Oakland has a ton of problems, most of which the City Council has not effectively addressed. In general, politics in Oakland is depressing. De La Fuente is the best person working at City Hall. He really should have been elected mayor.

He is involved, knowledgeable and effective. I hope District 5 electorate returns De La Fuente to the City Council. He is best for Oakland.

Jonathan C. Breault

Oakland

Misguided

STRANGE THAT JERRY Brown would endorse Brian Rogers for the Oakland school board. Rogers is a registered Republican with a long history of ties to

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private schools.

Let it be known that there is a hard-working and much better-qualified Democrat, Jody London, running against Rogers. London is a public-school parent and long-time district volunteer with an exciting platform of wise and innovative plans for our Oakland schools.

In considering Brown's misguided endorsement of Rogers, one can only conclude that Brown is either corrupt, hopelessly out of touch with the needs and priorities of Oakland's school communities or both.

Brown is wrong on this one. I urge Oakland voters to listen to the opinions of London's long list of endorsers, which includes Loni Hancock, Sandre Swanson and the Sierra Club, and vote for Jody London on June 3.

Carol Treadwell

Oakland

Broken promises

Measure Y was approved by voters in the fall of 2004 and guaranteed 63 additional officers, bringing the authorized strength of the Oakland police force to 802 officers.

The city broke its numerous promises and, up until a month ago, the police force was actually weaker than it was when Measure Y passed.

The money that wasn't spent on the additional officers, who still haven't been hired, has been sitting in the bank gathering minimal interest.

Rather it was, up until March 4, when the City Council unanimously passed a resolution recommended by Mayor Ron Dellums to steal $7.7 million of accumulated Measure Y funds to pay for "accelerated recruitment" and academy training of police officers.

Recruitment and academy training of police officers should be paid out of the general fund, and the mayor and City Council know it.

Indeed, no Measure Y officers are ever deployed out of the academy; all of them are veteran police officers. But the city is broke and Measure Y is flush, thanks to all the broken promises, so the city just couldn't resist helping itself to the cash.

This blatant misappropriation of funds is now the subject of a lawsuit, which also points out that the city has misappropriated Measure Y funds in numerous other ways, such as using the money to subsidize human resource technicians, and other uses never contemplated by the clear language of the measure or the taxpayers.

The taxpayers clearly voted for Measure Y because they thought the money would be used to pay for additional community policing officers not subsidize the general fund with no increase in the police force to show for it.

Under no circumstances should taxpayers ever approve any additional requests for handouts (think LLAD), given these patent abuses, and rather than holding the police department and themselves responsible for the obvious failures, the City Council is now closing ranks and trying to defend their own misconduct and incompetence.

In Oct. 10, 2004's Oakland Tribune, Measure Y's chief author, Jean Quan, was quoted as saying that Measure Y "will be used to expand the department to 802 officers. All of us have to run for re-election — none of us would break such an obvious promise."

How embarrassing, Ms. Quan. The police force currently stands at 750. As election season approaches, voters need to ask themselves has your City Council member made good on his or her promises? If not, throw the bums out.

Marleen L. Sacks

Oakland

Tough sentences

Recently, I heard Mayor Ron Dellums on the radio reacting to news about an epidemic of adolescent attacks by Oakland youth against "non-English speaking residents of Oakland."

The report stated that kids were willing to rob people of $2 on a dare and then would blame the other when arrested by police.

Then we heard Dellums' comment about how it was all about the lack of jobs and opportunities and, yes, racism was a factor. Nowhere did he mention lack of parenting or personal responsibility. Or the culture of welfare dependency and playing the system.

And then he said how, of course, there was no "magic bullet" after all.

Hey, mayor, here's a magic bullet for you: It's called jail — for first time or repeat violent offenders.

How can we expect to draw businesses and jobs if we are robbing people in broad daylight or the patrons of restaurants en masse at night?

How many times do we have to read in the paper about someone being arrested for a violent criminal act only to find they were on parole for a previous violent offense?

Long-term prison for violent offenders will reduce crime. It did it before and it can do it again.

We should also implement curfew on parolees as well as electronic monitoring and more jail time if they are associating with other law breakers.

Children who are of school age and on the street during school hours or after dark should be sent home and given mandatory at-risk counseling and further case monitoring.

Nicholas Yale

Oakland