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City Council Candidate Questionnaire
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Candidate: Shereda Nosakhare
District: 6
Note: Please limit your answers to 250 words except where the question
indicates a different word limit.
1. Please state your position on the following November ballot measures along with a brief
(No more than 30 word) statement supporting your position.
 Measure Z: Public Safety (Parcel tax for police, fire and violence prevention programs):
Support. Public Safety is one of my top concerns.
 Measure XX: Public Ethics (Restructuring of Public Ethics Commission and mandatory
funding for its staff) Support
 Measure DD: Redistricting (Redistricting commission for City Council boundaries)
Support: I have worked diligently on this measure for over a year with community
partners and community input. This measure takes the decision-making process out of
the hands of those that most benefit from the boundaries.
2. MOBN!’s public safety plan calls for increasing Oakland’s police force to 900 sworn
officers within four years. To reach this goal, MOBN! advocates that the city should: 1) not layoff
any Oakland police officers under any circumstances; 2) schedule, fund, and conduct sufficient
police academies each year to increase that number, not simply replace officers who retire or
otherwise leave the force; and 3) make increasing the size of the police department its number
one priority. Do you agree or disagree?
Agree; Public Safety is my top property. Families must feel safe in and around their homes. I will
ensure that our public safety staffing is restored.
3. OPD’s difficulty in achieving the authorized sworn staffing level appears to
be exacerbated by high attrition and low morale, as shown by the department’s internal polling
(http://tiny.cc/OPDPoliceSurvey) and it’s loss of officers only months after they complete their
training. How should the City solve OPD’s attrition and morale problems?
OPD needs support from the Administration and the Council. We have gone through several
Police Chiefs in the last few years because of our lack of trust that the leadership are experts
that can do their job.
4. OPD has been under Federal Court supervision for close to twelve years. While
Oaklanders have repeatedly been told that the end is in sight, in late July, Judge Henderson
stated that Oakland’s disciplinary processes have violated Court orders, and that continuing the

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same practices will "undermine any confidence in the sustainability of the reforms that have
been and continue to be achieved." Then, on August 14, the Judge criticized the City’s recent
inability to sustain through arbitration an officer termination in connection with response to the
Occupy Oakland protests. (Source: http://tiny.cc/ArbOrder.) The Court opined that Oakland
could not be in compliance with two NSA tasks if internal investigations were inadequate and
“discipline is not consistently imposed.” Many people believe the Monitor has repeatedly
imposed requirements on Oakland that far exceed the literal requirements of the NSA, and that
as a result of the Monitor’s shifting standards, Oakland may never be able to extricate itself from
Court supervision. As a City Council member, to what extent would you be prepared to oppose
continued and changing demands from the Monitor, and what is your plan to end the era of
Court supervision?
It's about balancing. The City has made a lot of progress, and down to a final few (3 I believe)
requirements before compliance. As the City Councilmember I will support Chief Whent who is
making progress and who has the support of Warshaw and work towards ending the era of
Court supervision.
5. According to the Public Works Department, Oakland is on an 85-year repaving schedule,
meaning a street that is repaved today won’t be repaved again for 85 years. Further, according
to Public Works, maintaining the existing pavement condition on Oakland’s streets would
require an estimated $28 million annually, while the amount allocated annually has been less
than $6 million in recent years. Sixty percent of the City’s curb ramps are non-compliant or non-existent.
The total needed to rehabilitate Oakland streets is over $435 million. How do you plan
to reverse the ongoing deterioration of our streets and sidewalks? If you are elected, when will
Oaklanders see a difference?
I support Measure BB as it will bring $8M for Oakland’s arterial streets (plus Bart, AC transit,
BRT). This is very important so we can see immediate change with our deteriorating streets.
Additionally, we should also look to bonds, as it costs even more to fix streets once they
degrade past a certain level. Oakland is 85th out of the 120 or so Bay Area cities- D- grade. We
must work diligently to improve this.
6. The extent to which the City faces unfunded liabilities and what should be done about
them has been a contentious issue in recent years. As recently as last December, the City
Administrator projected that for the three fiscal years beginning July 1, 2015, Oakland faces all-funds
budget structural shortfalls totaling $795 million if it addresses its deferred capital
expenses and deferred liabilities, and $342 million if it does not (Source: December 12, 2013
Update to Five-Year Financial Forecast, Attachment D, http://tiny.cc/5yrupdate.) Do you believe
Oakland faces a financial shortfall, and if so, how will you address it if elected in November?
Councilmember Schaaf's Rainy Day Fund proposal is a great first step, putting away 50% of the
ongoing excess real estate transfer tax (RETT), towards unfunded liabilities and capital
improvement needs. We are not doing enough to pay for future retirement and medical benefit
costs. We need to try and get a handle on escalating medical costs, which drives the increasing
OPEB costs, fight harder with providers like Kaiser perhaps. With new Calpers rules we now
have to show unfunded liabilities as a real liability, so part of the solution is making more
Oaklanders aware of our increasing costs. Our hard working employees deserve their pensions,
but we do need to ensure that Oaklanders understand the cost.
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7. Operation Ceasefire has been described as the centerpiece of Oakland’s violent crime
reduction effort. We understand that funding for its manager has been dependent on grant
funding and that there is an insufficient number of case managers to maximize Ceasefire’s
success. Do you support expanding Operation Ceasefire? Where specifically do you propose
allocating resources and staffing?
Operation Ceasefire is great, and it is working now that we have both the carrot and the stick
approach. OPD suggest that another Crime Reduction Team (CRT) dedicated to CeaseFire
would promote efforts. I support flexibility with OPD staffing, and keeping sworn numbers above
700 so we can have necessary officers for CRTs for Ceasefire among other focuses.
8. In 2012-2013, Oakland contracted with Strategic Policy Partners (Robert Wasserman et
al.) to present a comprehensive public safety plan. Strategic Policy Partners made a large
number of recommendations, some of which have been implemented and some of which have
not. (The reports are here: http://tiny.cc/SPPReport, http://tiny.cc/Bratton1,
http://tiny.cc/SPPBest) If the voters elect you in November, please state whether you will
support implementing the following recommendations (We are looking for a “yes” or “no”
answer, with explanatory narrative not exceeding 25 words for each recommendation):
 Call for Service Reduction strategy; Yes
 Expanded investigation capacity in each of the City’s 5 policing districts, so that each
district has an investigative sergeant, 3 investigators, and 3 to 5 police
officers. Yes
 Increased sworn police personnel to a ratio of 2 officers for every 1,000 in the population
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(i.e., 800). Yes
 Expansion of the Ceasefire initiative. Yes
 Redesign of community policing, so that the entire Police Department, not just PSOs,
are focused on community relationship building. Yes
 Measurement of the state of community / police relations. Yes
 Moving restorative justice practices into the community, to address neighborhood
disorder and minor crimes in a manner that brings community into the process and
prevents future crime and disorder occurrences. Yes
 Appointing a Director of Community Improvement who will be responsible for
coordinating collaborative action by city agencies, community groups and state and
federal partners, to address both quality of life issues and crime. Yes
 Appointing a team of representatives from the community to work with the Director of
Community Improvement, the Police Department and other government agencies to
insure community coordination. Yes
 Bringing Security Ambassadors into the crime reduction strategic plan and require
advanced training to those who patrol downtown areas, so they are active and have the
ability to intervene in minor situations that impact public security. Yes
I would support each of these initiatives but it all comes down to having over 700 minimum
officers to support these efforts.
9. In early 2010, Oakland’s Finance and Management Committee received a presentation
from staff and visiting personnel from the City of Baltimore concerning CitiStat, a leadership
strategy a mayor can employ to mobilize city agencies to produce specific results. (More
information is at http://tiny.cc/q00ojx ). CitiStat involves use of a round-the-clock 311 reporting
system for any request for city services other than policing. It uses data in a manner similar to
ComStat. High level city management uses the 311-generated data and benchmarks and

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regular meetings to hold departments accountable, judge successes and failure, reveal what
agencies are doing and not doing to achieve benchmarks and provide the best possible
services to residents. Explain your familiarity with CitiStat and whether you believe such a
program can and should be implemented in Oakland. If you do not believe it should be
implemented in the near future, explain why. If you think it should, explain what you will do to
support implementation.
The City has a new CTO Bryan Sastokas - this is in part about empowering him, IT staff, and
collaborating with the wealth of talent from Open Oakland, the civic hacker community to build
applications and leverage resources in Oakland and the Bay Area. Before achieving this higher
level of metrics, we should start by having a modicum of performance measurement for each
department based on the chosen metrics of impact. The City has a long way to go, so lets set
some achievable milestones with an eye towards a robust 311 system.
10. Oakland has room to improve its policies in the areas of crime reduction, budget
processes, street maintenance, and economic maintenance. What cities can Oakland learn
from, and adopt or emulate policies from with respect to these subjects?
What policies from other cities would benefit Oakland? Oakland should look at Philadelphia and
its use of private cameras to help fight crime; Richmond, with the way that it hires its Police
Officers and focusing on hiring officers from the community and San Francisco with economic
development and its planning department and ability to welcome development.
11. Do you support the following policies and, briefly, why or why not?
A. Creation by Charter amendment of a Rainy day fund as recommended by MOBN! and the
Budget Advisory Committee (BAC)? Yes, as I stated above we must not kick the can down the
road and begin to save for the future.
B. Annual polling of city residents on their satisfaction with city services? What would you do
with that information? Yes, this would allow the Council to feel the pulse of the residents and
adjust were needed.
C. Conducting a police resource deployment study to determine the number of officers actually
need by OPD and how they should be deployed? Yes, this will allow us to determine if we are
doing this as efficiently as possible to truly serve all residents.
D. Will you support the preparation of a comprehensive public safety plan? Yes, not just to
prepare one but I am also committed to carrying it out.
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