From: Andrea Wang
To: City Clerk; Manager Manager; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Malia Vella; Tony Daysog; Tracy Jensen; Trish Spencer Subject: [EXTERNAL] Police budget raised proposal: just don’t Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 6:56:38 PM
The proposed hiring incentive program from APD is totally outsized relative to both the community need and size of APD.
San Jose PD has 959 officers and recently approved an incentive program of $10,000 per hire for 15 hires, total budget of $150,000 Alameda PD, a department less than 10% of San Jose’s size, is proposing almost $1.8 million for their incentive program!!
This year, when considering a hiring incentive program, San Francisco BOS gathered information from multiple regional police departments’ programs. Alameda was, at that time, cited as having one of the highest incentive programs. If the best program hasn’t worked, why would we give it a 40% boost in value? The Staff Report cites housing affordability multiple times, however, there’s no stipulations in the proposal to ensure that the already high incentive of $75,000 be used for housing costs.
The Staff Report mentions that lateral transfer incentives have failed over and over again. Why would the City spend almost $2 million on something that has proven to not work?
Since there continues to be vacancies, and by the Staff report’s own admission, some tasks have been subsumed by other departments or entities (while not specified, assumingly the C.A.R.E team pilot program and parking moving to Public Works) - can’t APD just stick where they are size-wise and divert their $1.7- $1.9 million vacancy savings towards external resources, not policing? In 2019 Chief Paul Rolleri and City Manager Eric Levitt proposed a $30,000 hiring bonus on a one year trial. Now, in 2023 we have Chief Nishant Joshi and City Manager Jennifer Ott proposing a $75,000 hiring bonus on a temporary basis. New leaders, same old idea!
In a recent SF Examiner article, Chris Catren, chief of the Redlands Police Department and president of the California Police Chiefs Association called hiring incentives “a knee-jerk reaction to this crisis, because really what else do you do? …”
Rather than asking, how can we hire additional, supposedly “higher quality” officers to do the same exact work as they’ve been doing - let’s ask a few different questions.
Have these incentive programs ever worked in Alameda? By the Staff Report’s own admission, the answer to that is absolutely not.
Does employing more officers address crime in any meaningful way? Historical APD Clearance Rate data shows that regardless of officer headcount, APD consistently has an aggregate clearance rate for Part 1 “theft” crimes no better than 10%. That means that in the best case situation as defined by APD, just about fully staffed, 10% of the time they’re addressing crimes like auto theft, burglary, property theft and robbery.
Does officer headcount do anything to prevent crime? We actually have no idea! This is not a question that APD is ever required to answer. The best guess by the clearance rate data over time is, NO.
Could the City spend $1.8 million dollars addressing crime in a different way?
If APD can do the same job with about 70 officers, why not direct the budget savings from vacancies towards a solution that might actually work to address or prevent crime?
From: Madlen Saddik
To: Lara Weisiger; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Jennifer Ott; Malia Vella; Tony Daysog; Tracy Jensen; Trish Spencer Subject: [EXTERNAL] support letter for tonight"s council meeting Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 4:49:15 PM
Attachments: We sent you safe versions of your files.msg Support Letter Agenda Item 7A.pdf
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Honorable Mayor and councilmembers,
I’ve attached our support letter for the police department agenda item tonight.
Yours in Commerce and Community
Gratefully
Madlen Saddik
President & CEO
Alameda Chamber & Economic Alliance
Click Here to Book a Meeting With Me
510-522-0414 (office)
650-954-0848 (mobile)
From: Jennifer Ott
To: CityCouncil-List
Cc: Nishant Joshi
Subject: FW: For tonight’s meeting
Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 2:32:05 PM
Mayor and City Council:
Please find below an email from the POA President regarding Agenda Item 7-A.
Thanks,
Jen
From: Kevin Horikoshi <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 1:08 PM
To: Jennifer Ott <[email protected]>
Subject: For tonight’s meeting
As the President of the Alameda Police Officers Association, I support the proposal of the recruiting bonus. Like many other cities, we have had staffing issues for several years and have not been able to hire an adequate number of officers. These staffing shortages have caused the Department to force our officers to work mandatory overtime and has not allowed us to provide the level of service that we want to provide to the community and that the community has been accustomed to receiving from us.
I am in support of this proposal and any measures that will help us find the quality police officers that we all want.
Sergeant Kevin Horikoshi S-18
Community Resource Unit
Alameda Police Department
1555 Oak Street
Alameda, CA 94501
Monday-Thursday 7:00 am - 5:00 pm
(Desk) 510-337-8338
From: Ashley Gregory
To: Tracy Jensen; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Tony Daysog; Trish Spencer; Malia Vella Cc: Manager Manager; City Clerk
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 7-A
Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 8:59:52 AM
Dear Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft, Vice Mayor Daysog, Councilmember Herrera Spencer, Councilmember Jensen, and Councilmember Vella;
I am writing to express my opposition to the proposed Alameda Police Department's $75,000 hiring bonus incentive program.
This proposal needs to go back to the drawing board, there are too many indicators that this is a massive waste of the City's resources. You have the opportunity to focus on a care- driven budget, rather than a fear-driven budget.
I urge the council to consider alternative uses of approximately $1.8 million dollars. Now is the time to think outside of the police-punishment-fear box and imagine something new, innovative, and people-centered.
Sincerely,
Ashley Gregory
Alameda Community Member
From: Jennifer Rakowski
To: City Clerk; Manager Manager; Nishant Joshi; Tony Daysog; Trish Spencer; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Malia Vella; Tracy Jensen
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 7-A Police Hiring Incentives # 2023-2869 Date: Monday, March 20, 2023 6:32:22 PM
Dear City Council,
The proposed police hiring incentive program is not an efficient use of the city’s money or department resources. It is not the right fit for a community of Alameda's size. I urge you to send it back to staff to scale back in cost, scope and structure and bring back to council at the same time as bonuses are considered for current staff so a thoughtful discussion regarding solutions that work for recruitment and retention can be had.
Alameda's per capital median income is currently $61,380, $13,620 less than the proposed per officer bonus.
I realize APD's proposed hiring bonus $75,000 is paid out over 5 years but the proposed total package value is giving me sticker shock! 1) The proposed incentive program is larger than departments 10x APD's size. 2) Per officer cost are almost double the incentives of Alameda's existing program. 3) Alameda's current incentives are some of the highest in the region, with Alameda Police Department specifically highlighted in the last couple of months as a reason to increase incentives with SFPD.
4) Expending the program to all recruits instead of lateral transfers, changes the baseline reason for the program away from hiring experience and significantly grows the cost of the program in ways that are not clearly defined in the proposal. 5) Local housing cost cited as justification for increase but the incentive is not framed as loan towards renting or purchasing in Alameda. 6)There are many lower cost alternative recruitment and retentions strategies that may not grab headlines but will pay off in the long term. Salary’s, benefits and job security were least common reason for law enforcement applications (Gibbs 2019) 7) Benefit motivations for joining the job are associated with the highest rates of attrition. (Schuck 2020)
Why is new leadership recycling and doubling down on a failed ideas? Alameda incentive program, has only recruited one lateral transfer since 2019.
Twelve promotions and ten disability retirements are currently the driving forces behind staffing gaps. The city would be wise to address those contritions directly, with planning and attention to employee health and safety.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Rakowski
(Alameda current plan reason SF should increase)
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/politics/should-sf-match-bonuses-offered-to-cops-by- other-cities/article_648f662a-9b7d-11ed-b071-db38817d1f1e.html (Alameda plan larger than San Jose's)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/San-Jose-Spotlight-City-Council-Approves- Hiring-17527401.php
(Incentives compared as complied by SFPD)
https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:86096950-567d-4fbd-9fff- ee736f4c60aa
From: Is Sullivan
To: Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Tony Daysog; Malia Vella; Trish Spencer; Tracy Jensen; City Clerk Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 7-A on 3/23/2023 Agenda
Date: Monday, March 20, 2023 6:17:37 PM
Dear Council,
I urge you to vote against this resolution. APD's current hiring incentive program is already generous. APD offers hiring bonuses on par with or higher than 7 out of 10 of the cities cited in the resolution. If the current program hasn't helped in retaining sworn officers, then it does not make sense to double down on that program, and a $75,000 incentive is honestly outrageous.
Instead of spending all of APD's vacancy savings on the incentives program, that $1.7 to $1.9 million should be given back to the community. With the CARE team responding to many of the calls that APD used to take, APD's surplus should be directed there. Furthermore, we know that the best way to prevent crime is to meet everyone's universal needs. Why not divert this money to programs that already help fulfill Alamedans' universal needs? Thank you for your consideration,
Is Sullivan
From: Savanna Cheer
To: Tony Daysog; Trish Spencer; Malia Vella; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Tracy Jensen Cc: City Clerk; Manager Manager
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 7-A - March 21, 2023 City Council Meeting Date: Monday, March 20, 2023 5:38:15 PM
Hello:
I’m writing to oppose item 7-A at tomorrow evening’s City Council meeting. The hiring incentive program that APD is proposing is completely outsized for a police department of APD’s size and the proposal does not meet the needs of the community.
Conveniently left out of the staff report was information on how police hiring incentive programs look in large Bay Area cities. This omission means that the program APD is proposing can’t be put in proper context. For example, San Jose just approved a hiring incentive program for lateral hires in their police department with a total budget of $150,000 ($10,000 for 15 hires). The San Jose Police Department is over ten times as big as APD, employing over 900 sworn officers. APD is suggesting filling 24 vacancies with this bonus of $75,000 applying to each hire. That works out to a program 12 times as big as San Jose's with a price tag of $1.8 million. $1.8 million!! With a closer look, this seems like a last-ditch effort from APD to spend surplus dollars created through these staff vacancies. You have a fiduciary responsibility to the people living in Alameda to not excessively spend money on ill-proven efforts. $1.8 million could address myriad community needs and improve the lives of lots of Alamedans while avoiding investment in a failed policy.
Here are some specific reasons why you should vote NO on item 7-A tomorrow:
The staff report repeatedly mentions housing cost as a barrier to hiring officers.
The report says that it would be useful to have officers living in or very close to Alameda, but that hasn’t been possible due to cost of living in Alameda.
However, nothing in the proposed program policy requires that the hiring incentive money be spent on housing. Why wouldn’t a new hire with APD take the huge $75,000 bonus and get themselves a much bigger house in a more affordable city outside Alameda? It’s irresponsible to make a claim around a program with this big of a price tag that can’t be substantiated in any way and has no built-in assurances.
Per the staff report, written by the Chief of Police, these types of hiring incentives have not resulted in any meaningful boosts to APD staffing in the past. If a $30,000 bonus failed to produce results a couple years ago, why would an increase of 40% be a good answer so soon after? It feels more like a gamble than a surefire solution. $30,000 is already at the very high end of what other police departments around the Bay Area and CA are offering.
The staff report acknowledges that operational efficiencies have been gained at APD because some services that previously fell under police purvey no longer do. This is likely a reference to the implementation of the C.A.R.E. team program and moving parking enforcement to Public Works. It’s not a leap of logic to then assume there would be dollars attached to these operational efficiencies. Rather than operate under the assumption that APD needs a specific number of officers, why not look at the current conditions and see if it actually makes sense!? This seems particularly imperative when you’re deciding whether to spend $1.8 million on a program that is inadequately justified in the staff report.
Overall, this feels an awful lot like a “throw everything at the wall to see what sticks,” approach to a problem that hasn’t clearly been defined as a problem. Clearance rate data from APD would show that regardless of how many officers APD employs, the police department doesn’t prevent crime from happening (theft related crimes are pretty steady over time) and definitely doesn’t “solve” these crimes (clearance rate for theft-related Part 1 crimes hovers around 7% from 2014-2022). It seems like we’re all dancing around the crux of the issue - it’s time to invest in new solutions in public safety. Why is APD not alone in facing staffing shortages? That’s a question you should be asking. Perhaps policing isn’t cutting it and has fallen out of favor with the broader public. Of course this will be a hard reality to face for many. But just because something is hard, doesn’t mean it can be avoided. Be bold and chart a new path for Alameda tonight by saying NO to excessive, ineffective police spending! Thanks,
Savanna Cheer
Alameda resident