Features

In a scene that invoked historical images of a lanky President Abraham Lincoln walking through the streets of a liberated Richmond shortly before the end of the Civil War, Ron Dellums took a 15-block walking tour of International Boulevard in the Fruitvale District Friday evening surrounded by a phalanx of city officials, local residents, staff, police and private security packed around him so dense that the tall Oakland mayor could only be viewed by his snow-haired head towering above the crowd. 

But while Lincoln listened to expressions of gratitude from throngs of newly freed African captives for a war that was all but over, for Dellums the war has not yet begun. The mayor heard sometimes-angry residents and activists tell of conditions of violent crime, drug use, and prostitution saturating the predominantly Latino neighborhood and business district, asking for help from City Hall. 

The walk began at the corner of 38th Avenue and International and ended with a two-hour community meeting at Bridges Academy at the old Melrose Elementary School on 53rd Avenue.  

Joining Dellums in the walk were City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, City Councilmember Jean Quan, and Oakland School Board Director Noel Gallo, all of whom represent portions of the area walked through. 

Print reporters and television cameras jostled each other to get close enough to see and hear as Dellums listened as residents pointed out hot spots or talked of particularly notorious incidents. The mayor stopped twice, once at a 24-Hour Children’s Center at 47th and International to talk with staff members, and again to go inside the Corazon Del Pueblo restaurant at 48th to talk to customers, staff, and owners. City staff members trailed behind taking notes, noting code violations and, in one instance, a homeless encampment on the narrow sidewalk on 46th Avenue just east of International. 

None of the Fruitvale’s infamous prostitutes were visible as the mayor and his entourage walked, however. A half an hour before the tour began, Oakland police did their own preliminary walk and drive-by, rousting people they thought might be undesirable. 

At points, the mayor’s walk took on the aspects of a grand spectacle, with some 15 television or digital cameras recording the event from all sides, two television news helicopters hovering overhead, a police patrol car driving alongside on International, and some residents coming out to gawk and ask what was going on. 

Midway through the walk, a small contingent from the red-bereted, red-jacketed Guardian Angels organization joined the rear, some of them peering into the windows of storefronts across International as if the mayor of Oakland might be threatened by sniper fire. Members of the group later stood at the rear of the meeting at Bridges Academy, arms folded, as if providing a security detail. 

But while at times the mayor’s walk through the Fruitvale down International took on aspects of either a carnival parade or an election campaign, the activity was all seriousness at the meeting in the Bridges Academy auditorium. With Dellums, De La Fuente, Quan, and Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker sitting behind a table onstage listening, a collection of community, business, and organization representatives gave short speeches and then asked for specific commitments from City Hall to solve several of the Fruitvale area’s problems. 

Some of the requests were simple; asking Dellums to commit to “eating in our restaurants once a month so people will know that the Melrose and the Fruitvale are places to come to eat and buy” or agreeing to meet once a month for six months with local organizations (“That one’s easy,” Dellums answered to the eating question. “I was born in Oakland. That’s not a question. Yes.” The mayor also agreed to the once a month meeting schedule). 

But others were more difficult. To requests for funding for anti-crime programs, particularly to deal with getting the area’s prostitutes off the street, Dellums said that Oakland’s $1.1 billion annual budget is “so restricted” that “after taking out for police and fire and other necessary services from the 45 percent that wasn’t restricted, I was down to $2.4 million to try to solve all of the problems of Oakland. In one way, this is madness.” 

But Dellums said “I make a pledge to you I will try to find money in the budget” to solve the Fruitvale’s prostitution problem, and said he would also look to federal, state, and private sources for financing. 

In answer to another request that the city step up street cleaning efforts, Dellums said he would bring to the Fruitvale a program he has already initiative “a couple of other communities” to work collaboratively with local merchants to hire youth to clean commercial district streets and building facades. 

Calling it “a green brigade,” Dellums said that the purpose of such an effort is three-fold, “it keeps the area clean, it employs young people, and these workers can become our eyes and ears for safety purposes.” 

Dellums also committed to asking the Alameda County Superior Court to establish a second misdemeanor court in the county to step up prosecution of so-called “quality of life” crimes, and also committed to help with job training and the establishment of more jobs for local residents. 

The most poignant moment of the meeting came when a woman talked about girls twelve to fourteen years old being beaten and forced into prostitution in the Fruitvale, acknowledged as Oakland’s center for underage sex workers. The woman recounted an incident of one young girl running, screaming down International Boulevard followed by “her pimp” who was trying to beat her. “We’ve got to stop our babies from being exploited,” the woman said, her voice rising. 

On the stage, De La Fuente sat studying the paper in front of him, never looking up while the woman talked, his face grim, his mouth set. De La Fuente’s son was recently convicted of raping and beating several Fruitvale-area prostitutes, one of them underage.  

Quan later said that since she has been on council, “we have doubled the arrests of prostitutes so we can get these girls off the streets and help them,” adding, the audience applause, that “for the first time, we are putting pimps in jail for 10 to 15 years.” 

A bit of mayor-council rivalry was on display, as well. 

De La Fuente, who ran unsuccessfully against Dellums for the mayor’s office last summer, praised his old rival and said they were working together, but then, after he started to say that Dellums understands Oakland’s challenges, caught himself and then pointedly revived one of his points in last year’s election campaign, saying that “maybe [Dellums] doesn’t understand the incredible challenges we have, but he will.” 

And after De La Fuente told gatherers that “the difference between the mayor and the City Council is that the mayor can act without having to go through anyone else,” Quan said that “the mayor has given you the dream. I’m going to give you the numbers.” Putting a grim face on Oakland’s budget picture, Quan said that “many of the things you’ve asked for tonight, Ignacio has been fighting for in budgets passed, but the money hasn’t been there.” 

Still, she said that she and De La Fuente were “working to fund the ambassador program for our youth to walk the streets,” and said that as chair of the Council Finance Committee, she would work to increase the number of high school and community college interns in Oakland, saying that she wanted to “make sure” a good number of city staff members “are made up of young people from Oakland.”