A Visit to the Back Room
[May 20, 2008]

            "I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the No. 1 issue on people’s minds in this community is the rising violent crime and rising crime rate."  [Mayor Dellums]

            "It speaks to a more coherent and effective and efficient deployment of the police department, so you engage in the discussion of community policing or some other approach to policing."  [Mayor Dellums]

            It is perplexing to wonder why the 39 month long decline of Oakland public safety is nurtured so, in light of the words above.  It might be useful for some to share my first insights into the complex apparatus that weaves the tapestry of government from the Mayor to the Officers in the neighborhoods.  I felt very close with the newly elected Mayor in January of 2007 when he uttered the words above in an Oakland Magazine interview.  We met during the Mayoral campaign about nine months prior in the reception room of a television studio.  We were preparing to engage in a televised debate.  Ron Dellums walked in and the reception room changed from a loud cackling to a quiet awe. 

            Mr. Dellums engaged my wife and me as if we were compatriots; he immediately set us at ease.  We were nervous, as if newly introduced fish into a pool of sharks.  After all, we stepped into the private club of Oakland politics - uninvited.  I wore two pins, proudly proclaiming my membership on the Oakland Police Department, as a retiree and still officially Ombudsman.  I know he saw them, and I wondered how he would react, recalling so vividly his days as the radical of the sixties and seventies when OPD was viewed as a pig pen, an occupying force, a nest of brutality, racism and corruption.  Dellums was the consummate gentleman.  I was endeared to him immediately, as he delved into social banter as one might with a new next door neighbor. We shared old Oakland stories, intimacies of growing up, and a closeness about our respective heritages, as if we were going to be roommates.

            We entered the debate forum, were fitted with intrusive wiring for microphones, and I noticed first-hand/first -time the reporters who would be our inquisitors and the two incumbent Council Members who wished to graduate to the Office of Mayor.  I was advised that election debates were to be a simple matter.  That is, prepare a short rote statement on each of about forty issues, and simply move your lips to let the memorized lines flow.  I had worked for a week and had forty index cards with a few points to drive home on each issue.

            I was fourth in line to be questioned, and sure enough, it was obvious that the other three candidates had a good grasp of their index cards.  I was nervous, and hoped it didn't show, especially to Dellums, who was on my right.  I forget the question I was asked, but I'll always remember my reaction.  I blew it.  I just couldn't spew the prepared lines.  Something in my consciousness blocked the charade from happening.  I don't even remember my answer, or any prepared answers the rest of the evening.  Candid responses simply rolled off my sleeve, and likely very strangely.

            After the debate, Mr. Dellums asked if he could speak privately with me down the hall.  His decorum and respectful manner notwithstanding, I thought surely he was going to tell me I was in way over my head.  He must see I wasn't cut out for politics if I couldn't even remember a few lines.  He stood inches taller, poking his finger affectionately into my chest, with brow furrowed into wrinkles suggesting some profoundness.  He caught me completely off guard, and I fell in love with him.  I felt as if Plato to Socrates.  He said, "Oz, you're brilliant.  You're refreshing.  I'm so glad you're in this race."  He would repeat those words many times during the campaign, and I was kept inspired.

            I saw him and the other candidates in many debates and forums, and Dellums often nudged my knee under a table, or gave me a hand gesture or knowing wink after I said something.  He introduced me at his public gatherings as his "peer."  That was heady... Ron Dellums' peer!  Nancy Nadel made me feel as an interloper wasp at a chicken picnic.  Ignacio was always engaging, accepting me as a candidate with things to say, but with an eye only for winning.  He confronted me with amazement at my full-page ads, not for their content, but for the audacity.  He admired my ever-present OPD pins with positive comments, whereas Nancy always looked as if she needed a vomit inducer to expel a poison they represented.  Dellums was the mild and friendly supporter, always with kind soulful words.  Ignacio was the confrontationalist, who blurted thoughts as if he were the Boot Camp Drill Instructor... and he could be admired for his sincerity.  Nancy was always withdrawn, as if a queen found unwillingly with a commoner.  She always referred to "the legitimate candidates," as perhaps to underscore her contempt for my insignificant strangeness.

            After the results were in, and the one who should have won did, I got a number of phone calls telling me that Mayor-elect Ron Dellums had spoken on the radio.  He mentioned that he liked the public safety ideas of Ron Oz, and no other specifics or references to others were apparently uttered.  I was in a rush to get to Sweden where our large family has spent the last 25 summers, but I did have time to write a quick multiple-page paper with brief congratulations, many recommendations, and a commitment to stand by Ron Dellums in any way he saw that I might be of service.  I also gave him a large coffee mug with the Superman logo.  He may have rejected the notion all during the campaign, but he was now to be our Superman.  I felt he was the Man-of-the-Moment for Oakland.  I was excited.

            I returned from Sweden and Ron Dellums still had months to go before taking office.  Chief Tucker had asked me once again to be the OPD Ombudsman.  The OPOA President, Bob Valladon, and I buried the hatchet and I was allowed back into the fold.  I was inserted into the highest levels of OPD management once again, and I was especially interested in the long-planned "re-organization."  Every Wednesday, I attended Captain (then) Kozicki's senior staff meetings at Eastmont.  Every Thursday I attended the top management meetings in the Chief's Conference Room.  I was ubiquitous on the Eighth Floor, but also on every floor from the Ninth to the Basement.  I had a generous office on the Sixth Floor where I could never be found.  I rode the streets with Officers and Supervisors.  I spoke with Captains and Lieutenants throughout the Department.  I didn't like what I saw, and there were many meetings with Chief Tucker where he would close the three doors to his office and we would spar about what I perceived as disconnections and ad hoc fragmented efforts.  I wrote a number of private staff reports to him.  To talk with Wayne Tucker is to know that when he enters the "red zone" that it is prudent to back off.  Everyone watches his neck, from collar to jaw line, to note when his exterior aplomb is being exceeded like a pressure valve on a hot water heater.  He also increases the jawing frequency on his chewing tobacco.

            One day, Wayne Tucker beckoned me into his office.  He asked if I would consider being the Mayor's Public Safety Director if he so recommended to the Mayor.  Various thoughts swirled in my head.  I surmised that the Chief didn't know the Mayor well yet, or he would have known that Mr. Dellums had already indicated as much to me indirectly.  I also knew that the Chief was sensitive to my critiques of his Department, albeit private.  I had always kept such comments very confidential and outwardly maintained my support for this Chief. Perhaps he felt he could count on me to be in his corner as Public Safety Director.  I wondered silently if this was "political deal-making?"  My first meeting with Ron Dellums on this topic was a "done deal."  He said he wanted "a contract by four o'clock" that afternoon, naming me as Public Safety Director and called his Chief of Staff Dan Bogan in to seal the appointment.  The Public Information Officer, Karen Stevenson, called me to get the P.R. aspects rolling.  Others at City Hall congratulated me.  I was excited.

            I wanted the job, but I also wanted it to be meaningful, truthful, and transparent.  I knew that Mayor Dellums could be a real force for much needed change.  Whenever I met with the Mayor, I felt we shared enthusiasm, energy, and a real connection.  I knew I had to always be honest with positive candor, if still very private.  I wrote a series of essays directly to the Mayor about my findings and thoughts concerning the OPD.  I always included recommendations for positive actions to be taken, including various options about what to do with Wayne Tucker.  He could remain as Chief, among other options, but many changes were necessary at OPD.  He could move to another Public Safety capacity - Regional Director, Public Safety Director, or any one of many official titles - that would qualify him for the five-year term he needed to vest for PERS retirement.  I even suggested a "buy-out" of his contract, so common in private industry.  After all, my own commitment was always to serve pro bono and that should serve to offset the cost.  In any event, Wayne Tucker's priorities, leadership and management skills, and "vision" for Oakland's OPD were a disaster, in my own opinion and that of many others, and I recommended quietly separating him from further day-to-day involvement at the helm of OPD.  Dan Bogan told me mine was the thickest file in his office.  We spoke several times, and I could tell that I represented certain political awkwardness.  I said often enough that I could not be a Happy Face on a Billboard of More-Of-The-Same. Sometimes I would intone that I could not be a representative in the public simply banging knee cymbals and strumming a Banjo to a tune of "Everything's All Right."  I must have exuded a sufficient degree of charm, sincerity, and positive common sense, because the dialogue went on for months.

            It all came to a head when Wayne Tucker and I were called into the Mayor's Office together, ostensibly to get on the same track about my appointment as Public Safety Director.  The buzz was already in high-tune throughout the Department that I was the new Public Safety Director.  The intimacy of my insider contacts with members of all ranks was filling the senses with many well wishes and expectations for better days at OPD.  I was optimistic.  I had called several previous long term OPD leaders to seek advice about the politics involved.  The advice ranged from "keep quiet" and slowly go for changes later, to the one that most fit my sense of honor and commitment.  Just moments before I went into the meeting, I was on a cell phone and advised that not being up-front was wrong.  If the Mayor found out later that I "pimped" him for the job, he should be expected to lose all faith in me. Dan Bogan had mentioned earlier in a private meeting that one should always go "True North."  Both comments were most in keeping with my natural instincts and I went with them.

            In the meeting, the introductions were cordial and upbeat.  I could have skimmed through and felt certain about the appointment.  I shattered the decorum without attacking Wayne Tucker directly, but by mentioning again my appraisals that the OPD was harmfully disconnected and operating ad hoc.  An interchange began.  The Chief emphasized "accountability" in the sense that OPD Officers must be made to comply with the discipline and with his plans for re-organization - above their objections.  I emphasized subscription with higher morale and greater job satisfaction as the direction to take.  I talked about efficiencies, and Tucker talked about his 2-2-3-2-2-3 12-hour shift plan.  He talked about "triaging" calls, more Crime Reduction Teams, and Fluid Deployments over Beats.  I challenged that the escalation of crime was a valid indicator that we need more feet on the ground, a greater positive police presence.  He talked about "old-fashioned practices" and I talked about evolution and connecting the dots into the future.  He spoke with conviction about having to "break the culture of OPD," and I spoke of enhancing the culture of OPD with creativity, initiative, and engagement.  The final breaking point was when Tucker said, as if to justify the heavy-handedness of unilateral arbitrariness, that "You have to break eggs to make an omelet."  I countered, as if to spotlight the dramatic differences in our thinking, that "First, we must turn the lights on in the kitchen."  Dellums and Bogan, astute senior statesmen, told us we would have to take our differences elsewhere and resolve them quickly.  We were in retrospect, bickering siblings.  Tucker and I spoke for about half an hour in front of City Hall, and resolved to meet at 9 am in his office the next morning.  I truly felt I might have gone too far, and I was looking for conciliation.

            Mayor Dellums ultimately went with Wayne Tucker, and I was dropped out of the arena.  Dan Bogan called me and said I had "gone too far."  I agreed with him, and suggested candor required it, but we might have spoken different languages because I thought it was about policies and the direction of OPD that I went too far.  The politics of smooth transition hadn't occurred to me.  Dan must have felt continuing confidence in my abilities nevertheless because he asked if I would be interested in a position as Director for Development.  He mentioned it in a later call also.  I never followed up, neither has the Mayor's Office, and Bogan is gone.  Now, I think my naïveté must have really shown, in that it was probably about public image, and I thought it was about public safety.  I have spoken to Ron Dellums since, and continued to write essays directly and privately to him... until recently.  I still feel we are members of mutual admiration.  Lately, my phone calls to him have been unheeded.  Recalling my last telephone conversation with Dan Bogan, I could tell we shared a sincere affection with concern for Ron Dellums.  He encouraged me to remain involved, and to see if I could encourage Ron Dellums, the man, to heed his gut instincts.  He referred to the swirling of self-serving interests around the Mayor.  Others around Mr. Dellums have told me the same thing, that many feel Mr. Dellums' aloofness isn't for lack of caring... but rather it's defensive for lack of real support that he can count on.  There are many who fawn over him, and that is safe territory because, as it was told to me by some City Hall confidants, Ron Dellums doesn't endorse controversy... He wants consensus.  I think differently, and it is the Mayor's prerogative to surround himself with approved thinkers. 

            Status Quo is the rest home for consensus.  Change is born in new ideas for old problems, not old ideas for new problems.  Ideas must stand the tests of challenge and progress.  Of course change is often threatening, especially to those not vested in the future.  Likely Dellums doesn't want to open the RonOz Pandora's Box.  He may be right, because he is the Mayor.  I still love Ron Dellums as the Man for Oakland, and I'm not alone in wondering why a man of such stature and ethics, such obvious compassion and sincerity, with such a history of confronting change against politics as usual, with so much love and confidence by so many people, doesn't indeed capture the moment.

ronoz