Editorials

OAKLAND – Voters in the city of Oakland may decide at the polls in November whether to pay for the cost of hiring 100 new police officers and expanding crime-prevention programs. 

The Oakland City Council on Tuesday will hold a special meeting to debate whether to put on the ballot a set of measures that would increase taxes on parking lot fees, hotels and utilities. 

Another measure would ensure that if the increases were approved, all of the extra revenue would go toward police services. 

The measures would allow the Oakland Police Department to hire 100 new officers. Of those, 45 would deal exclusively with street-level drug dealing, while 27 officers would be assigned to foot and bike patrols along the most troubled commercial corridors and residential neighborhoods to look for crime and work with business owners and residents on safety issues. 

If approved, the measures would also add nine officers who would work with the probation department to monitor probationers and arrest them if they break the law. Fifteen officers would be assigned to solve and prevent robberies as well as sexual and aggravated assaults.