As an Oakland resident and Oakland public school teacher, I demand the City Council to go further by cutting OPD’s budget by 50% and reinvesting in community programs that directly support residents. Listen to your constituents and the communities that you have been elected to serve by investing in housing, jobs, youth programs, restorative justice, and mental health workers, and include community members in reimagining ways to keep the community safe.

I am a resident of Alameda county and am calling on all Oakland City council members to vote in favor of reopening the budget and for Council Member Bas' proposal to defund OPD. Minor reforms do not help the the people of Oakland, they mostly harm. We must invest comparable funds into the communities and people.

I am a resident of Oakland's 3rd District. I demand that the budget be re-opened and the pitiful $2.5mm "defunding" of OPD be increased to $150mm. These funds are sorely needed to fund critical services like mental health, education and housing. The OPD can continue to be in business because the basic needs of Oakland residents are not being met. However policing is NOT THE SOLUTION. Invest in the people and watch our city flourish.

Want to ensure adequate funding for the MACRO project, especially since the original budget request was for a single site for the pilot project and now it appears that there will be an additional site in West Oakland. Also, not to complicate MACRO by adding elements not in the proposal that would add complexity with other access points than 911 which have not been reviewed or vetted.

As a resident of district 2, I demand that the council cut the budget of the OPD by 50% and reinvest the $150 million into social and community services and programs such as the Black New Deal. Oakland deserves services that support its citizens, rather than criminalizes them. I urge you to include community members in the creation of new response systems that do not replicate white supremacist patterns.

I am a resident of District 1. How could you ignore the thousands of constituents who sat through your meetings, emailed, marched to your homes? We are begging for change. I am utterly disappointed in our City Council. We are not going away. Defund the Oakland Police Department. I'm at the point where I will beseech all of my neighbors to vote you out in November. I'm trying to work within your system, but you ignored us all entirely.
Invest in the Black New Deal. Invest in communities, not police. Listen to how we want our money spent.

I am a resident of District 2 and demand that budget discussions be reopened immediately. What happened last week with the budget was shameful & disgusting. The Oakland City Council received thousands of messages and witnessed weeks of actions and NEEDS to listen to the people.

We demand you reduce OPD’s budget by at least 50%. This money will be well spent on housing our unhoused neighbors, mental health, youth and other community services, as well as increased COVID testing sites.

Cancel CHP’s contract. Freeze all police hires. Disallow unapproved overtime for officers. These measures will save millions and make up for the budget deficit.

We do not want or need more traffic cameras, helicopters, or shotspotters. We don’t want the use of facial recognition or other “automated enforcement solutions” in Oakland. And we don’t want our money paying for police legal settlements in cases of murder, misconduct and negligence.

OPD is a bad investment and has lost all community trust. How many more people will you allow the police to murder before you enact meaningful change? You have the chance to be on the right side of history and pave the way for a better future. Reopen this budget, defund and disband OPD, and reinvest in community.

I'm a resident of district 3 and am opposed to the budget and am calling for reconsideration for the proposal. The budget passed is a far cry from the 50% cut demanded by many Black organizers and activists in the community. We demand better as minor reforms of policing practices alone have proven to be subpar.

OPD currently consumed 44% of the city's general fund while Oakland's residents suffer without adequate social services. The police don't reduce or prevent crime, they criminalize it. We must:

* Reduce our police force to 678 officers. With that we could unfreeze hiring in other sectors, restore recreation, arts, and vocational training programs that are slated to be cut out.
* Demilitarize the police
* Remove police from public schools to protect our children
* Invest in the community and divest from the police
* Implement the Civilian Police Commission - Work with the Anti-Police Terror Project and Coalition for Police Accountability to fully implement Measure LL and to establish an independent Police Commission, ensuring improved oversight of OPD.
* Donate all OPOA campaign contributions. Give all donations you have received from the Oakland Police Officers Association Political Action Committee to bail funds, mutual aid organizations, and/or local nonprofits defending Black lives and pledge to not take any more money from police unions.

As a resident and voter in district 1, I implore the city council to defund Oakland Police Department NOW.

OPD takes almost HALF of Oakland's general fund each year — money which should instead go to desperately needed resources like housing, parks, libraries and other vital services that will actually make us safer. Interim Police Chief Susan Manheimer has even provided supporting evidence that nearly half the 911 calls in Oakland are related to social services, so it’s obvious what will keep Oakland safe is less policing and more using our money to provide living wage jobs, housing for all, youth programs, health care, restorative justice and other essential community services.

I and thousands of others are asking you to defund the Oakland Police Department by at least 50%, invest the money from defunding OPD into passing the full Black New Deal, and stopping the use of violence of any kind against protestors.

I am a District 1 resident. I echo the calls of other commenters: Defund OPD by 50%. Reinvest in the community. Thank you.

As I resident of district 1, I am asking you defund OPD by 50%. This money could be used for things such as housing the homelessness, accessible healthcare and mental healthcare (Including folks without income or addresses), better public education and after school programs in Black and Brown communities. This city has so much money, yet it’s funneled into the police to protect property and light skinned residents while simultaneously committing murder on Black and Brown folks and sex trafficking minors. You have people struggling to survive in a tent on one side of the street and million dollar condos going up on the other, what’s wrong with this picture? We need to lift our communities, not punish them and knock them down with police brutality. You’ve created this situation, you need to fix it. Defund the police and refund the community.

My name is Ella Teevan, and I live in District 1. I’m calling on Oakland City Council Members to vote with Council Members Kaplan and Bas on the proposal to defund the Oakland Police Department by at least $25 million. We demand that you reallocate those funds into improving safety and providing adequate social services for all Oakland residents.

This issue is personal to me, as I've seen how OPD has responded to protesters - friends and people I know - with violence, just for calling attention to police violence against the Black community in the first place. Meanwhile, the outsize share of funding *not* going to community programs is abundantly clear in my neighborhood, Temescal, where people without housing have to make do with children's parks, sidewalks, and freeway underpasses. We need to invest in housing, jobs, youth programs, restorative justice, and mental health workers to keep the community safe.

As a district 5 constituent, caretaker for mentally ill family members, and BIPOC ally -- I ask that councilmembers support council member Bas' proposal to defund OPD and reallocate resources to community services including mental health crisis response professionals. I echo a previous commenters and APTP demands:
1) Defund the police by 50% (not $2.5M, which is around 1% or less of their total budget)
2) Invest that $150M into the Black New Deal
3) Cancel CHP's contract and remove them from Oakland
4) Stop the use of violence against protesters
5) No unauthorized overtime for OPD
6) No general fund $ to pay legal settlements due to police murder, misconduct, and negligence
7) Invest in housing, jobs, youth programs, restorative justice, and mental health workers to keep the community safe

My name is Yeshe and I am a resident of district 2. I continue to urge you to defund OPD and replace them with on violent first response, community centered strategies. Please reopen the budget so we can preserve funding for our youth, homelessness, jobs, and other care programs.

As Oakland residents, we continue to demand that you take immediate action to ensure the following:

1. DEFUND OPD by 50%
2. INVEST ALL SAVINGS in the Black New Deal
3. STOP the use of violence against protesters
4. CANCEL CHP's contract & remove them from Oakland

Thank you for being on the right side of history. We will remember in November.

We the people demand that proper action be taken immediately to reinvest 50% of OPD's funding into our marginalized communities in the form of respectable & affordable housing, mental health services (including a new & compassionate crisis response option for MH issues), clean food & water access, and many more places we have relentlessly told you about. MACRO hasn't even been paid for the work they have done already, meaning enough money must be allocated to that venture so that we can pay in full for the efforts of the past AND this year. We can not continue to roll debt over & expect it to serve us well.
Bas's proposal of $25M being defunded from OPD is not enough, but is the best start any of you have proposed yet. Bas seems to understand the seriousness of our demands and respects the relentlessness of our voices. For that, I am grateful, but nothing stops there. That is hardly the beginning.
Serve our communities, NOW.
Stop serving the wallets of white supremacy & capitalism.

I am a homeowner and resident in Oakland's District 1 and I strongly support the resolution to defund the OPD in favor of non-violent first response strategies to include social services and mental health first aid and response.

I support Councilmember Bas's resolution as the concrete, currently available option to reach those goals, and further urge the council to disentangle our other emergency response services, such as the Oakland Fire Department and Animal Control, from the OPD budget so we, the citizens and government, can have a clear understanding of what funding goes to Policing, Police equipment, and payouts to settle police misconduct and brutality cases. Furthermore, I support the Anti Police Terror Project's goal of further defunding the OPD by at least 50% and to use that budget to invest in Oakland housing, education, youth programs, small business boosting, and restorative justice.

I'm a resident of District 2, and while I support this measure it doesn't go nearly far enough. Defunding OPD by 50% should be a bare minimum starting point. The obscene amount of taxpayer money that currently goes to OPD will serve our community so much more effectively in the form of health, mental health, housing, and education services. I implore the entire council to not only support this measure, but commit to even an more substantial redirection of funds as soon as possible.

I urge the council to strongly consider the demands of the Anti Police-Terror Project to:
- Reduce OPD’s allocation from the General Fund by 50% (roughly $150 Million)
- Disallow unauthorized overtime by OPD
- Invest in housing, jobs, youth programs, restorative justice, mental health workers and other services that actually keep the community safe

I am a District 6 resident of 15 years a District 7 resident for 5 years before that. I want Councilmember Loren Taylor and the full Council to
(1) vote yes to reopen budget discussions TODAY
(2) reduce the OPD budget by at least 50%
(3) invest in community by increasing funding to house my unsheltered neighbors, protections for renters and low wage workers, youth and children programs and critical infrastructure
(4) consult and FOLLOW THE LEAD of community and labor organizations and Oakland residents in finalizing the budget
(5) cancel CHP's contract & remove them from Oakland and
(6) prevent the introduction of traffic cameras, facial recognition, & all “automated enforcement solutions” in Oakland

What happened at the 6/23 City Council meeting was an undemocratic slap in the face to Oakland residents whom this council has a duty to represent.
I am a resident of D3 and I urge my Councilmember Lynette Lynette McElhaney to support this item. I support Councilmember Bas's proposal and her commitment to defund OPD and reinvest in healthcare, housing, and social services. But this proposal should be seen as only a first step towards realizing a commitment to defund OPD by at least 50%.

I am a resident of District 1 and I am angrily urging you to reconsider last week's FY2020-2021 mid-cycle budget amendment. Continuing to fund OPD in this manner is worse than just burning the money. OPD has been unable to reform itself and doesn't actually increase safety in our communities. The cuts proposed in last week's budget are categorically insufficient and while it was passed by the "equity caucus" it was anything but, as it was the most conservative proposal on the table.

I agree with APTP's call for a 50% reduction and acknowledge Nikki Fortunato Bas' latest proposal as the only one with any moral clarity. Our tax money should be divested from OPD and reinvested in the community for schools, housing, transit, mental health programs, community centers, and parks.

Thank you.