With fiscal crises in California and its municipalities on the rise, officials throughout the state have found ways to cut corners and make extremely difficult decisions.
On July 13, this resulted in a massive layoff of 80 Oakland police officers. In the week that ensued, crime had not dissipated. A sniper fired on police in West Oakland while an armor-laden militant engaged in a shoot-out with police on Interstate 580.
Some on the editorial board expressed the opinion that, in a depressed economic climate that California and most of America is currently immersed in, a show of police force will counter the impression of Oakland as a volatile, chaotic atmosphere and reinforce an image more attractive to business investment.
Counter to that position, others on the editorial board voiced the opinion that police have been a large part of the problem in Oakland. Oakland police are often the unnecessary lethal element in conflicts, such as the incident on July 17 when BART police fatally shot a man at Fruitvale BART Station.
Connecting both positions is a need for effective governance across the board. Fiscal irresponsibility and incompetence, whether from the local level with Mayor Ron Dellums, to the executive level with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been absent of clear and tangible strategies to solving our worst problems. California needs to be led from the top-down by leaders who are intent on getting us out of debt. With these plans in place, cities will not have to worry about how to pay for such basic needs as policing.