Oaklanders fear 100-block plan moves crime outward Oakland hills residents feel neglected by police

Frank Castro takes his golden retrievers, Morgan and Sasha, for a walk in his Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland, Calif. on Saturday, March 24, 2012. Castro opposes Mayor Jean Quan's 100 Block crime prevention plan, believing it is taking resources away from other areas of the city. less Frank Castro takes his golden retrievers, Morgan and Sasha, for a walk in his Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland, Calif. on Saturday, March 24, 2012. Castro opposes Mayor Jean Quan's 100 Block crime prevention ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Oaklanders fear 100-block plan moves crime outward 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Oakland hills residents are concerned that a dramatic increase in residential burglaries in their well-to-do area may be the unintended consequence of Mayor Jean Quan's 100-block plan, which focuses city services on the poorer, crime-ridden pockets of the flatlands.

Quan's plan hones policing and other city services, such as blight removal, on the blocks that she says account for 92 percent of the city's violent crime. She announced the plan in October, but the city did not begin fully implementing it until two months ago, after Occupy Oakland protests had died down.

Now, residents outside the 100 blocks question the effectiveness of the plan, say it has resulted in an unfair distribution of the city's law enforcement resources, and raise concerns that it may be contributing to the rash of burglaries in the hills.

"The 100-block initiative is too little, way too late," said Jim Dexter, 65, chair of his neighborhood crime prevention council in the Montclair district. "Whether it's effective or not, it's taking massive resources away from other areas of the city."

Dexter, a 30-year Montclair resident, said several of his neighbors have been burglarized and he is worried about what could happen when he takes vacation.

"All I'm thinking about is that when I come back, there's going to be a lot of stuff missing," he said. "I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe at all."

'Frustration and fear'

The councilwoman for the area, Libby Schaaf, said Dexter is not the only person unsettled by the crime wave.

"I am hearing an unprecedented level of frustration and fear," said Schaaf, who represents a wide swath of the hills. "There is an increase in crime, and there's a mounting frustration about what the city is not doing."

The issue highlights a long-standing rift in this diverse city, which has numerous neighborhoods of exclusive, multimillion-dollar homes in the hills, while at the same time having pockets of intense urban poverty in the flatlands.

City officials often note that hills residents believe police don't respond to their neighborhoods fast enough because they're busy with the high crime in the flatlands, while residents in the flatlands believe police are busy catering to the wealthy people in the hills. But in a lean budget time, said Councilwoman Pat Kernighan, "the truth is, nobody is getting enough police resources."

Schaaf said burglaries in January and February doubled from the same months last year in each of the police beats in her district. There's one exception, the beat in the hills where she and Quan live, where burglaries quadrupled. Schaaf said she's periodically reviewed officer staffing, and it has generally stayed constant in the hills over the past year despite Quan's plan and officer deployment changes made last summer by then-Police Chief Anthony Batts.

"The 100-block plan has not changed police resources in the hills," Schaaf said.

Quan, a longtime hills resident, was blunt when asked if her plan had changed officer staffing: "No." The additional officers working in the 100-block areas are new hires - either through budget negotiations or a federal grant, she said.

Quan, who is the subject of a recall campaign based in part on criticism over her handling of crime, said the assertion that police officers have been reassigned from other neighborhoods to work in the 100 blocks is a falsehood being driven by ill intent.

"Some people are opportunistically spreading misinformation about the 100-block plan," she said. "That's unconscionable."

Officers reassigned

Some residents are angry that the Police Department in 2011 - well before Quan announced her 100-block plan - shifted the way it deploys officers paid for by Measure Y. The 2004 ballot measure placed a $90 parcel tax on properties as a way to pay for community policing officers and violence-prevention programs.

The city's 35 police beats once had 57 community policing officers; each district had at least one officer, and some had more than one. But as the department has continued to shrink, the city made changes so that each beat would have only one community officer. The remaining 22 community officers were assigned to crime reduction teams to focus on specific issues. One patrol beat in the hills, beat 13, went from having three community policing officers to one, according to Officer Johnna Watson, a police spokeswoman.

The reassigned officers work on issues such as violent crime. But because burglary is not considered a violent crime, Watson said it's true they would be spending less time in the hills.

"If we have to prioritize, which we do in law enforcement, we will always choose a crime against a person and provide service to that before we provide for crimes against property," Watson said.

Still, Quan insists those 22 officers have continued to work in the same geographic areas they once did.

It's the kind of argument that infuriates Frank Castro, chair of the Rockridge neighborhood crime prevention council.

"If you have a finite number of police officers in the city and you now devote more of them to a 5 percent area of the city, that necessitates a fewer number of officers in the rest of the city," said Castro, 56. "That's just math."

Councilwoman Jane Brunner worries Quan's plan may have signaled criminals to move to higher ground.

"If they think the cops are in one part of town, they're going to move elsewhere," said Brunner, who represents North Oakland, including Rockridge. "As you take care of really violent crime in the city, you have to be careful you don't leave any other area vulnerable."

Confusion on council

Some council members say Quan has failed to adequately explain what her 100-block plan actually is. Others say they were never told of the redeployment of community policing officers. Several council members have asked for the plan to be brought before the City Council, and Quan's administration plans to do so by the end of April.

"We haven't even had the opportunity to vet it," Councilwoman Desley Brooks said at Tuesday's council meeting. "I get questions all the time about it. I can't talk to it intelligently. It needs to come before this body to bless."