League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Alameda County, CA November 4, 2014 Election
	Joe Tuman Answers Questions Candidate for Mayor; City of Oakland

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Oakland and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. Oakland sits on the Bay, and the waterfront, downtown, and West Oakland areas are particularly low-lying. With climate change bringing major changes, including sea level rise, what are your plans to bring this to the forefront of the Oakland mayor's agenda?

As a City, Oakland cannot fight climate change on its own. The City of Oakland would need to work on the Regional, State and Federal levels to cut carbon dioxide and other climate changing causes in order to preserve not only West Oakland but all low lying area's along the Bay. Knowing what will work and be affordable will then need to be expedited to assist again not only West Oakland but all parts of our State and Country.

2. What is your vision for Oakland, i.e., what issues are of special interest and concern and what ideas do you have to put Oakland in the forefront?

Oakland has many natural advantages that other places lack, including our location near San Francisco's booming tech industry, our 19 miles of shoreline with a port, an airport, rail and public transportation, our people, our diversity, our entrepreneurial spirit and our arts and sports teams. You would think that people would be clamoring to move into our underutilized commercial and retail spaces. Some are. But, not enough. There are a number of reasons why. Primary among them is what the Urban Land Institute found to be a complete lack of leadership and an onerous zoning and building permit process.

No doubt about it. Oakland enjoys a host of natural advantages: redwood forests, acres of open spaces and parks, one of the best climates in the nation, 19 miles of shoreline with a busy port, railways and modern broadband highways. Perhaps our biggest strength is the people who live and work here. We are diverse, well-educated and innovative.

Natural Advantage - Location

Over 150 years ago, our redwoods were used to build San Francisco and the East Bay, and again to rebuild after the 1906 Earthquake. Farms replaced forests, and from the late 1800s to today, food processing has remained one of our leading industries. In the 1860s, we became the western terminus of the Transcontinental Railway. We have 19 miles of waterfront, and the fifth busiest port in the nation handling 99% of all containerized goods moving through Northern California. We can move not just goods, but people with easy access in most districts to both BART and AC Transit.

And, Oakland sits across the Bay from the fastest growing, most dynamic economic engine in the country: Silicon Valley and San Francisco's high technology epicenter. Hundreds of Bay Area businesses are seeking affordable commercial space. The good news for them is that Oakland has acres of development-ready land, and thousands of existing, rentable square feet.

Natural Advantage - People

Our biggest strength is the people who live and work here. Our nearly 400,000 residents are among the most culturally diverse and well educated in the nation with 38% of Oaklanders over 25 years old holding college degrees. Oakland's community colleges are the best in the Bay Area (with some of the highest transfer rates to four-year institutions in the State.) Our excellent community colleges are ready to train our young workforce who are ready and willing to work.

We're also innovative. Believe it or not, in 2014, Oakland ranked 5th in the nation in total venture capital investment in technology startups. Our challenge is to promote not just job growth, but income growth, and to make certain that everyone who lives here and every district shares in the benefits of economic improvement.

Natural Advantage - Art and Sports Draws

In 2013, Oakland attracted 2.5 million visitors. Hotel demand is up. People are drawn to our growing arts and entertainment scenes in Uptown and elsewhere. Oakland is home for thousands of artists, many of whom are nationally and internationally known.

And for over 100 years, we've been home to major sports franchises, such as the Oakland Oaks, Seals and Skates. For most of the past 50 years, the Oakland As, Oakland Raiders and Golden State Warriors have resided here. Today, Oakland is the only California city with three major sports franchises.

We have failed to build on our Natural Advantages

The well respected Urban Land Institute (ULI) came to Oakland between 2011 and 2012 to try to understand why the natural advantages of the Broadway Corridor + "Oakland's main street" + were not being realized. ULI looked at why the Broadway Corridor was leaking retail despite numerous advantages, including: thousands of new residents, an entrepreneurial culture, 180,000 daytime workers, a connection to the waterfront, expanding medical facilities, and tremendous transit links. Their conclusion? Lack of leadership. ULI found that Oakland has an "unpredictable," unwieldy, "onerous" business and zoning approval process. When redevelopment efforts were eliminated in 2012, the City should have, but did not step up to craft alternative ways to support new investment. Finally, there is a perceived and real problem with crime that must be addressed sooner rather than later. (Click here to read the "Tuman Crime Plan.")

ULI's observations were written about fortifying retail along Broadway, but similar barriers and recommendations could just as easily be (and have been) drawn about Oakland's inability to add jobs, keep sports teams, and improve the economic quality of life citywide.

It all boils down to leadership. If city leaders lack a vision, then city staff operates without one. Our current elected officials tend to approach economic change in a piecemeal and disjointed way. We need leaders who are unafraid, and willing to tackle big challenges. The current bureaucracy is not collaborative; I will change that.

We need to create a business friendly city that attracts new businesses, cultivates home grown small businesses and helps train our residents to find jobs locally.

3. How would you address continuing high rates of crime in Oakland?

Staff within the Oakland Police Department (OPD) currently numbers in the low 600s; however, city consultant Bill Bratton said in August 2013 that adequate staffing for our city needs to be 900 plus. Of the 600 within OPD, there are only 235 police officers available to patrol our city of over 400,000 at any given time. To make matters worse, we have 153 officers approaching retirement age (50 years old) with two-thirds of those eligible to retire beginning in 2016. Oakland's current police staffing level of about 15 officers/10,000 residents is about half of San Francisco's and a third of New Orleans.

The solution.

In order to increase police staffing, and especially patrol officers, we need more money and more "academies" to train new officers. As the new officers are trained and hired, we need plans in place to boost morale and retain qualified staffing at the 900-1000 person level.

Immediate Action Steps +

Hold three academies a year
Add approximately 50 officers/year net of attrition and achieve 300 new officers within 6 years
Retain existing officers
Contain costs for new officers
Pay for the new officers by selling surplus public lands, growing existing tax bases, expanding business license taxes on new businesses, and collecting hotel taxes on newly built rooms.

The Problem - Police Understaffing

With a staffing level approaching the low 600's (estimates vary from month to month because of normal attrition), the city has seen a steady decline in the size of the department for many years, and only in the last year and a half began addressing this with new academies. The small number of police staff is compounded by the fact that only 235 officers are available for patrol--and not all at the same time--in a city with a population is excess of 400,000 people. While the city is to be praised for reinstating the academy process to recruit new cadets/officers--the reality is that the city's current commitment to only 2 academies/year through 2014 is simply inadequate to meet the obligation for safety and protection of the public. These academies, thus far, have started with 55-60 students, but eventually graduate less than 40 before field training begins. The most recent academy graduated more, but we have yet to see how many will remain after field training. For our previous two academies, after field training (a 16 week period), that rate dropped to approximately 35 cadets/class. Two classes/ year means 70 new cadets for the city--which would be wonderful but for the fact that normal attrition of existing police staff in Oakland is 5 officers/month--for an average total attrition of 60 officers /year--owing to a myriad of causes, including retirement, death, disability and lateral transfer to other police departments. If the academies add 70 cadets, but we annually lose 60 officers to normal attrition, the net addition of new officers is only 10/year. We are barely covering for attrition with this approach.

New Special Attrition Challenges to the department exacerbate staffing challenges for Oakland this year. According to estimates provided to me by Cee Belue, Director of Personnel for OPD, a cohort of approximately 153 officers is approaching retirement age (50) at the same pace, and be eligible to take retirement by 2018. Of that total, up to 101 officers may be taking retirement by or before the end of 2016. Given the current low morale of OPD[1]the probability that all eligible officers could take retirement simultaneously within their eligible year raises the specter that normal attrition may spike to more than 5/month--and the possibility looms that even with 2 academies, the department may contract to less than 600 officers--and potentially even less than 500.

Adequate Staffing for Oakland Police is at least 900-plus officers, according to no less a source than Mayor Quan's own consultant (and the new Chief of Police for New York) Bill Bratton, in comments he made to an audience of 500 Oaklanders in a speech delivered at the Claremont Country Club in August of 2013. At the current pace of academies, it would take nearly three decades to reach full staffing--and that would assume that the current special attrition challenges described above were somehow mitigated. Stated simply, we need more officers than we have budgeted for, and the Mayor's plans to increase staffing will not even cover for attrition.

The Solution

Getting our staffing to the correct levels. With the beginning of the new mayoral administration in 2015, the city will commit to a program to rebuild OPD by adding up to 300 new officers net of normal attrition, taking total staffing to greater than 900 officers. This program will phase in over the years gradually by hosting three academies per year (2 to hold us even with normal attrition and 1 to make incremental gains). Once this approach is fully engaged, the city will add approximately 50 officers/year net of attrition and achieve 300 new officers within 6 years. At the end of this rebuilding phase, there must be a permanent line item in the budget for 1-2 academies/year as needed, to keep staffing even with normal attrition. Oakland must never allow its police department to shrink to such low numbers of officers again.
Additional Academies. Two academies will be held within Oakland, and one may be outsourced to Dublin (the Sheriff's basic academy) if the outsourcing helps scheduling and cost containment. Otherwise, all academies will be held in Oakland.
Retention of Existing Officers. Commensurate with the hiring and training of new officers, the city will commit to retain an adequate supply of veteran officers who may be eligible for retirement. Ideally, we would like to see a situation for our department where most of our officers are between the ages 30-39, or 40-45, with (respectively) minimums of 6 or 11 years of experience. As we add new officers, we want our newest recruits (who may be as young as 25 years old) to be trained and supervised by veteran, experienced officers.
Cost Containment for New Officers. If budget constraints require this, third tier hires (new cadets) may be brought in at a slightly reduced base salary, with identifiable step increases to allow them to get to the same salary levels as other officers once they have put in their time, post-academy. Cost savings from reduced salary may be reinvested into the academy process, or go to help fund another initiative designed to help new cadets with housing.
How to Pay for it. The cost of new officers (assuming total annual cost/officer--including salary and benefits--of $180K and an additional $4MM/academy) will be provided in the following ways:

Effective immediately with the start of the new administration, the City will identify and evaluate all public land assets which are currently unused, and which may not provide a service to the community or a revenue source. Whether by sale, or public/private development, or via lease agreement, any land which can be monetized will be converted to create revenue stream for the city. Examples of this can include parcels as small as a portion of a driveway at a gas station on San Pablo, or buildings as large as the Oakland Kaiser Convention Center. The latter of these, e.g., could retain the façade of the original building and have a hotel placed atop it. The hotel would help provide a revenue stream (via an existing 14% room rate tax) to the city.

A blend of existing tax bases--sales tax, business license tax, and room rate taxes for hotels--will be engaged to grow a significant amount of new revenue for the City. These include the following:

a) Starting with development of a new retail district in the downtown containing at least four large box retailers (e.g., Macy's, Nordstroms, JC Penny's, Target), and a much larger number of existing and new small retailers, restaurants and bars, the city will embark on an ambitious campaign to recapture lost retail leakage (which currently is in excess of 3.5 billion dollars/year). The sales tax loss to the city is approximately 35 million dollars/year. My goal will be to recapture 80% of that leakage--which amounts to $2.7 billion in retail spending by Oakland residents in other cities. Giving Oakland residents a reason to spend that money here would translate into a recapture of lost sales tax in the amount of $27 million dollars per year. Similar retail strategies will follow in each of the city's districts. In some places, it may reference city support for existing retail (e.g., by changing parking policies), while in others it may include the recruitment of more grocery stores with good quality and affordable foods.

b) Recruitment of new businesses to Oakland in the following sectors: technology and innovation, food production, hotel and hospitality, and the aforementioned retail businesses as well. The dual purpose of new businesses will be to create a new base of business license taxes and grow new job possibilities for Oakland residents. We will target the attraction and development of 500 new businesses within years, to grow business license tax revenue.

c) Building at least three new hotels capable of housing 200 rooms each. On a Monday-Friday basis, those who recruit convention business to Oakland believe we have demand for an additional 600 rooms. The rate for the rooms can range from $100 to $200 dollars/night. If we assume a 52 week year, and five days occupancy/room--we should be able to sell 260 days (Monday-Friday, weekends will vary). Assuming a room rate tax of 14%--with distribution to the zoo, the museum and the observatory of approximately 3% of that--the city would still derive a healthy 11% tax from the rate on these rooms. Each room, thus, would bring the city a minimum of $11 to an assumed maximum of $22/night. At 600 additional rooms, that would be 600 x 22--for an additional revenue of $13,200/night. Multiplying that total by 260 weeknights would deliver an additional $3.4 million dollars of room rate tax to the city.

Where possible and appropriate, civilianization of positions currently occupied by police officers capable of serving in patrol can reduce the number of police officers that need to be trained in an academy. Careful inspection of this reveals at least 30 positions that could be replaced by a civilian at a reduced cost. Examples of this include replacing police officers with civilians for the animal control center, creating more civilian lab technicians so that officers would not have to be pulled from the field, and perhaps creating more civilian positions in Internal Affairs. Note: reassigning 30 officers for patrol means we must only "grow" our department by 270 officers. While we do have to pay for the civilian replacements, they come at a 50% less cost--creating a savings $90,000/individual x 30 or $2.7 million dollars.
Additional revenue will be derived from the ongoing housing boom in Oakland--with transfer tax and limited property taxes.

4. While most of the Bay Area has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, Oakland is still in trouble. How do you plan to stimulate the economy in Oakland?

Half of Oakland's top 10 biggest employers are public agencies, including the State of California, Alameda County and the City of Oakland. Our public sector employers account for 60% of the 34,562 jobs that the 10 biggest employers generate. As we grow, Oakland must shift the ratio toward more private sector jobs because public sector employers neither pay as many taxes nor inspire as many ancillary support industries as private sector employers do. And, in this era of shrinking government, sustainable economic and job growth is more likely to come from private business than from government agencies. As Mayor, I will add 500 new private businesses that generate many new jobs. I will focus first on industries where we already have some traction, including:

Health Care
Commercial Space
Technology
Neighborhood and Major Anchor Retail
Food Production
Hotels
Arts, Sports, Tourism
Green Jobs
Construction

We are committed to the economic development of Oakland, but we want it occur by keeping what has sustained us and what makes us unique. Here are some of the challenges we face.

Over half of Oakland's jobs are in public agencies[1], which neither pay as many taxes nor generate as many ancillary new businesses as private employers, and whose employees often leave at the end of the workday for homes in outlying suburbs.
While some retail districts are thriving, others like downtown, and West and East Oakland are not.
We want to add businesses and shops that will provide jobs and services for our existing residents.
We want to share in the economic development spreading across the Bay Area, but we want to do it Oakland style, without losing what makes our city as diverse and interesting as it is today.

With these overarching principles as guidance, I commit to attracting and locating 500 new private sector businesses in Oakland during my tenure as Mayor. I will start by focusing on the economic sectors where we have a natural advantage, and may already have some traction. We can build from there.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. References to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 31, 2014 06:22
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