Talk about a blunder!
Oakland has missed out on funding from a $267million grant to combat retail theft after its leaders missed the deadline to file an application.
California planned to distribute the money to cities struggling to deal with the rampant looting, which has plagued the state.
But Oakland missed the July 7 deadline to apply for the grant due to alleged technical difficulties – and it has left businesses and residents furious.
Local pastor and community leader Bishop Bob Jackson slammed the city officials and said: ‘You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to fill out the grant.’
Oakland Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas admitted she was ‘extremely disappointed’ to miss out on the grant and added the city administrator was investigating how the mistake happened.
Oakland has missed out on funding from a $267million grant to combat retail theft after its leaders missed the deadline to file an application due to alleged technical difficulties
Oakland Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas admitted she was ‘extremely disappointed’ to miss out on the grant and added the city administrator was investigating how the mistake happened
The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to distribute $267million in grants to cities to help deal with the rising organized retail theft issue.
It publicized the deadline to maintain a ‘level playing field’.
But following a legal review, the California Board of State and Community Corrections determined ‘the City of Oakland did not meet the necessary requirements for a successful application submission and will therefore, not be eligible for funding consideration.’
The city’s Economic and Workforce Development Department collaborated with the Oakland Police Department and community partners to put an application together for the governor’s Real Public Safety Plan grant opportunity, the City Administrator’s office told local website SFGATE.
While the police and community partners handed in their materials on time, the development department did not.
‘Obviously this outcome is unacceptable,’ the City Administrator’s office said in a statement.
Council President Bas said: ‘Community safety is Oakland’s top priority, and I am extremely disappointed we missed a grant opportunity to bring more resources to our city.
‘The city administrator is investigating what happened in order to prevent this from happening again.’
‘You just had to do it in a timely manner,’ Bishop Jackson said. ‘And because public safety does not seem to be a priority for the leaders in this city, it was not done.’
He added crime is as bad as it has ever been and he does not understand why those in charge did not submit the application on time.
Larceny, which includes retail theft, increased by almost 50 percent in Oakland between 2019 and 2022. There have already been 3,329 reported cases so far this year.
Robbery has increased by 32 percent since 2019 with 1,699 cases reported in 2023 and there have already been 1,734 aggravated assaults in the city compared to 1,577 last year.
California planned to distribute the money to cities struggling to deal with the rampant looting which has plagued the state, including cities like Oakland
Data shows the city’s current crime epidemic – in which rates across nearly every major category have increased dramatically since well before the pandemic
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Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao (pictured in an interview about the crime wave in August), inherited the city’s crime woes upon assuming office this year and vowed to make addressing illegal acts her top priority
‘That was free money for us to be able to abate a lot of the problems that we’re having centered on crime right now,’ he said.
‘We missed the opportunity because we were negligent because we what, we were reading our emails. What why did we do that? What was the what’s the problem leaders?’
Businessman Chris Rachal, who owns restaurants Mimosa on Grand and For the Culture, believes the mayor, those in the city council and the city administrator should be held responsible.
‘Is an embarrassment really. I mean, when you really think about it, it’s just an embarrassment,’ he said.
‘Oaklanders are scared to come out of the house. You know, for the most part. I mean, a lot of people just don’t even want to come out the house with the fear of someone, either carjacking them robbing them breaking into their car. And it’s done quite a quite a hefty job on businesses.’
The Oakland NAACP office hit out at the failure from city officials to apply for the funds.
‘We are shocked, perplexed, and furious that the City of Oakland forfeited millions of dollars in crime prevention funding by missing a state grant deadline,’ it said in a letter.
‘This is a devastating blow to citizens and businesses who have been clamoring for crime prevention measures which could have been funded by the millions of dollars in grants offered by the state.’
It is not clear how much money Oakland would have received as a part of the grant or what the technical issues that prevented the application from being submitted on time were.
Successful applicants include police departments in Fremont, Newark and Vacaville who are set to collectively receive around $7million.
San Francisco’s police department is going to net $15.3million, which makes it one of the most highly awarded in the region.
Business owners like Bruce Vuong – who owns an automotive shop- likened Oakland to something out of a war film. Citizens and other frustrated storeowners have called on officials to declare a state of emergency
Governor Gavin Newsom has now announced a plan to inject additional funding to the state to help tackle the problem of rampant theft
The extra funding will be used to establish retail theft investigative units, install surveillance cameras, increase arrests and stop vehicle and catalytic converter thefts.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s office is working to hire someone who streamline the application process to prevent something like this from happening again.
It comes as a distressing new crime trend known as ‘flash rob mobs’ is on the rise and likely to cost California a whopping $19billion a year, guidance from the LAPD warns.
The incidents have become increasingly frequent in soft-on-crime California, where detectives in the state’s largest police force are now assembling designated teams to tackle the problem.
The groups have been pillaging stores including Nordstrom and Versace.
In response to the recent spate, officials at the Los Angeles Police Department have formed a taskforce, named the the Organized Retail Crime Taskforce.
As of the end of last month, the taskforce had made eleven arrests in connection with four cases.
But detectives say the trend is not contained to the Golden State, and will end up costing America $30billion a year unless something is done.
