Thor Swift For The Bay Citizen

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan listens to members of the public giving comments during a meeting of the Oakland City Council on June 7, 2011

Updated Feb. 23, 2011 at 11:56 a.m.

Mayor Jean Quan's plan to reduce crime in Oakland's most violent neighborhoods may undermine a voter-mandated community policing program.

Some of the city's problem-solving officers, a fleet of 57 officers assigned to work with residents on neighborhood beats, have been reassigned to work on Quan's 100-block initiative, according to problem-solving officers and other members of the force.

Quan's plan focuses law enforcement activity in the city’s most violent neighborhoods. But with a shrinking patrol staff already struggling to respond quickly to emergency calls, the department has elected to "borrow" from the department's problem-solving roster, leaving the popular community policing program unmanned in some neighborhoods. 

The department would not say exactly how many problem-solving officers are being used to staff the 100-block plan, how many have been moved from their beats or how long their assignments will last.

The staffing shift has raised questions among community policing advocates, who worry that diverting the officers is leaving some neighborhoods behind. 

Neither of the committees charged with overseeing the community policing program was fully briefed on the plan, according to several members interviewed by The Bay Citizen. Although many committee members said they support the idea of the 100-block plan, some said they believe the use of problem-solving officers to staff it is illegal.

“It makes sense to focus your resources where you have 90 percent of the murders, but it does not jive with the mandate,” said Jose Dorado, the chairman of the Measure Y Oversight Committee, who was appointed by then-council member Quan. “If in fact the PSOs are being used in the 100-block area, we understand the logic, but that’s not what the voters passed.”

But Sue Piper, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said that the Measure Y legislation, which created the community policing program, allows for problem-solving officers to be used in special operations in their neighborhoods.

"The use of them to resolve issues is an appropriate use of the funding," she said. "That's how PSOs are used all over the city."

The legislation allows the city "some flexibility," according to Mark Morodomi, a supervising attorney in the Oakland City Attorney's Office.

Measure Y, a property tax passed by voters in 2004, funds the officer positions and many of the city's violence-prevention programs. Each of the 57 officers is assigned to a different police beat in the city, and works with residents in each neighborhood to identify and solve problems, from blight to drug dealing. The officers provide residents with a friendly face amid a police force that, besieged by high-priority calls, rarely has time to walk neighborhoods or even respond to home burglaries.