One of my list members shared this essay with me, written by a local resident;  Interested to see what OL readers feel about these views:

"It is absolutely false that people in Oakland do not care about public safety. I am sick of hearing that. Oakland property values have fallen far more than comparable surrounding communities (and, Oakland was ranked #6 nationally recently by Forbes for property value loss among America's 50 largest cities). In addition, Oakland has actually lost population. All of this means people are voting with their feet. People care a lot. They are both leaving and not coming.

The problem is there is a very vocal and well organized group of people in Oakland who hate cops and fight all attempts to increase police enforcement against Oakland crime, and there are just enough people on the city council and elsewhere that listen to them to impede sensible anti-crime policy. Why should the citizens of Oakland be required to spend significant amounts of their time organizing and repeatedly showing up at meetings simply to get the city to follow common sense measures to create a civilized environment? It is one thing to get involved in city policy and engage in areas of interest, but it is an entirely different thing when we are required to engage in a dedicated, never ending effort to fight a systemic problem of refusing to do what is necessary to ensure basic public safety and deliver an urban environment that meets the standards of modern civilization.

The results of Oakland policy are a disgrace. People are downright scared of Oakland. It is ridiculous this has been allowed to transpire. The failures are obvious, yet the same process continues on and on. It seems nothing will get through to certain people. I am sick of people criticizing the citizens of Oakland for our government's failure to bring civilization to Oakland.

Right now, we have a request from our understaffed police department for gang injunctions, curfews and anti loitering injunctions to help them suppress crime. This is going to end up being a huge fight with the well organized police hating contingent who tirelessly work to keep Oakland just like it is, getting serious attention from some members of our council. People in favor of a civilized, low crime city are opposed by people with a lot of time on their hands. There is no reason that we should be required to show up to get Oakland to provide us with the most basic of all services, public safety. Still, many of us keep trying even though we continue to fail."

Please share your thoughts in the comments or email to editor@oaklandlocal.com