A YARD DOG TOWN

When I was growing up, Oakland was a yard dog town.

There was a pack of four or five of them, used to stay in a yard behind a wooden fence about a block from our house. Why the wooden fence was there I couldn’t say, since it only covered three-quarters of the yard, leaving one side completely open to the street. And it was along that street that I had to go, pedaling on my bike, if I wanted to take the direct route to the park or to most of my friends’ houses.

I rode by that yard maybe 10-15 times on a busy week. Most times the dogs would be back in the yard, there, sleeping, and most times when I passed they’d look up, sniff the air, see nothing of interest, and settle themselves back down.

But I don’t know…two or three times a week, maybe…one of those dogs look up and see me riding by and would raise up and start barking. I don’t think it was always the same dog; they didn’t seem to have any particular leader. But one would just start barking, and if one of those dogs barked then all of them would start barking along with him, and if the dogs started barking then one of them would take off running after me, bounding out through that space where the fence didn’t exist, and if one of the dogs took off running after me then all the rest of the dogs would follow, the whole pack of them, hollering and shouting, as if they were trying to tell some other dogs up ahead to stop me. And if there were any other dogs on the street that day…didn’t matter if they knew these first dogs…they’d take up the chase as well.

What would set that first dog off, who knows? But when he started, the rest would always follow.

A long time has passed since I pedaled a bike down to the park, but Oakland still seems to be a yard dog town. And no, I’m not talking about pit bulls and rotweillers. I’m talking mostly about us.

(And, yeah, I know I’m going to be in for lots-and-lots of trouble, calling Oaklanders yard dogs, but there’s a point to be made here, somewheres, so we’ll risk it.)

Usually, the salaries and duties of top Oakland officials is not much of a topic of discussion around here. Despite the fact that it’s our money they’re spending, the average Oaklander has little idea how this city runs at the top. All of that changed last week when, under intense community pressure, the City of Oakland decided to temporarily freeze the salaries of top Oakland officials (that is, no more raises), until City Council gets a handle on the current budget crisis.

So how did that all come about?

A couple of months ago, East Bay News Service owner Sanjiv Handa released information that several of Oakland’s top city officials (including City Manager Robert Bobb, Assistant City Manager Dolores Blanchard, and City Attorney John Russo) had managed to pay-raise themselves into being some of the highest-paid city officials in California. This seemed odd because 1) Oakland does not have the largest population in the state, so it wouldn’t seem that we should be paying out the largest salaries, 2) Oakland is not considered among the best-run cities in the state so if we are paying out the largest salaries, we aren’t getting our money’s worth, and 3) Oakland is in the midst of a budget crisis in which city services are being cut, and when you’re cutting city services to taxpayers, it appears a little unseemly to be giving out pay raises to the people who are supposed to be providing the services, paid for by the people who aren’t getting as many of the services as they used to.

The result was community outrage. Newspaper columns and editorials, folks speaking out at Council meeting and other gatherings, and, I’m sure, a ton of telephone calls and emailed complaints. And City Council, suddenly, froze the salaries of top Oakland officials.

One dog was all it took.

Arf!