The head of the Oakland Police Union is fired up after a new report in the online publication The Oaklandside uncovered emails of city staffers questioning OPD’s role in the city’s failure to submit for a state retail theft prevention grant.
And the OPOA thinks Mayor Sheng Thao is now trying to pin it on the police.
“We’re seeing an anti-police campaign smearing the police officers, who did their duty trying to point the finger at those who actually come to work every day and serve this community,” said Barry Donelan, Oakland Police Officers’ Association president. “What we’re seeing now, her administration is pushing out emails suggesting it’s the police department’s fault when in fact, it has nothing to do with us. It’s her administration‘s fault.”
The Mayor has publicly taken responsibility for the misstep, most recently during the State of the City address. And her staff says nothing has changed.
“We missed an opportunity with the retail theft grant and as mayor I own that,” she said back in October. “The buck stops with me.”
But as the war of words heats up, the acting city auditor says he’s determined to get to the bottom of it all.
“There’s been a lot of public accounts as to what may have happened, what may not have happened, what should’ve happened, but we are going to bring our independent perspective and find out exactly what happened,” said Michael Houston, acting Oakland city auditor.
He said he’s conducting an independent and thorough audit of what took place -- pouring over emails, data analysis, interviews, all the records he can dig up.
“That’s our objective to find out what happened and if anyone in particular is to blame, the audit is going to identify that,” said Houston.
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“There was $276 million on the table,” said Donelan. “This state wanted to give the money to Oakland because it needs it more than all the communities around us, and she failed.”
Whether it was the mayor, a city department, or someone else who dropped the ball, the auditor hopes to have an answer in February.
“We look forward to being able to report exactly what happened,” said Houston.
