Oakland Pays $17 Million for Raiders as Cops Lose Jobs (Bell: insurance, violent crime)

[DocGoldstein]

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Oakland, California, the fifth-most crime ridden city in America, faced a $32 million budget deficit last year. It closed the gap by dismissing a fourth of its police force, more than 200 officers.

‘‘If someone calls 911, you’re looking at an indeterminate amount of time before an officer can respond,” says Barry Donelan, 40, a sergeant who is president of the Oakland police union. “Citizens are suffering.” Reversing a renewed rise in violent crime is out of the question, he says.


“The 1995 deal didn’t work from a financial perspective for any party to the deal -- city, county or Raiders,” says Amy Trask, chief executive officer of the Raiders. “That shouldn’t stop us from trying to reach a deal that works for everyone.”

Oakland Pays $17 Million for Raiders as Cops Lose Jobs - SFGate

Balancing the budget by dismissing police officers, while crime skyrockets, and the average response time to a 911 call in Oakland is 42 minutes. But at least the Raiders are in town.

[Senno]

Surely the prestige of being a "big league town" more than makes up for the debt.

Shoulda let the Raiders go to Irwindale...

[jade408]

You realize this is leftover from the crappy decisions deployed in the 90s right? Not a new decision.

File this with the lunacy where the City accepted stock options in lieu of cash to attract Zhone technologies to east Oakland. []Another California First: City Takes Stock Options in Start-Up in Exchange for Land - CoStar Group

Zhone was one of those colossal dot-com busts. Anyone who spent 20 minutes analyzing the original business model would have found flaws.

[DocGoldstein]

Yes the 1995 deal was just another bone head move by Oakland (and many more followed). It just seems like lunacy that $17,000,000 is going out the door for "10 Raider's home games" when 200 officers got laid off, and 9-1-1 doesn't work in Oakland anymore.

What the heck do you do in an emergency? Drive yourself to the hospital? Defend yourself from armed intruders?

[luau]

Originally Posted by DocGoldstein

Yes the 1995 deal was just another bone head move by Oakland (and many more followed). It just seems like lunacy that $17,000,000 is going out the door for "10 Raider's home games" when 200 officers got laid off, and 9-1-1 doesn't work in Oakland anymore.

What the heck do you do in an emergency? Drive yourself to the hospital? Defend yourself from armed intruders?

mod cut I'm happy to hear more cops lose their jobs. I read countless stories and watched enough video to understand the prevalence of police brutality.

You want to be safe? Try to walk in large groups, don't conspicuously display your wealth, wrap your car keys around your knucklesmod cut, and a hard knee to the groin does wonders.

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by luau

mod cut I'm happy to hear more cops lose their jobs. I read countless stories and watched enough video to understand the prevalence of police brutality.

You want to be safe? Try to walk in large groups, don't conspicuously display your wealth, wrap your car keys around your knuckles mod cut, and a hard knee to the groin does wonders.

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by DocGoldstein

Yes the 1995 deal was just another bone head move by Oakland (and many more followed). It just seems like lunacy that $17,000,000 is going out the door for "10 Raider's home games" when 200 officers got laid off, and 9-1-1 doesn't work in Oakland anymore.

What the heck do you do in an emergency? Drive yourself to the hospital? Defend yourself from armed intruders?

When my husband thought he was having a stroke, he called me from the road, I called Eden Emergency room and drove him -- we were in the ER 15 minutes after he got home, being seen IMMEDIATELY.

It was Bell's Palsy. Thank GOD.

By the way -- it's not even the wait that's awful while they stick you on hold -- it's the mod cut
screeching Yoko Ono noise to tell the TTY people they are on hold. It's EAR SPLITTING and gets replayed over and over and over and over and over and over during the 20 minutes you are on hold. Does it need to be so loud? Dead people can hear it.

By the way, I thought they were supposed to call you BACK if you hang up while on hold on 911. They don't.

[justinbro2002]

And for all the money that Oakland spent to get the raiders back and continue to spend to keep the raiders happy and losing money on the whole raiders investment the raiders are trying to leave again and go to either santa clara and share the 49ers stadium or head back to LA to the new stadium they are building there.

[DocGoldstein]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

When my husband thought he was having a stroke, he called me from the road, I called Eden Emergency room and drove him -- we were in the ER 15 minutes after he got home, being seen IMMEDIATELY.

It was Bell's Palsy. Thank GOD.

By the way -- it's not even the wait that's awful while they stick you on hold -- it's the mod cut
screeching Yoko Ono noise to tell the TTY people they are on hold. It's EAR SPLITTING and gets replayed over and over and over and over and over and over during the 20 minutes you are on hold. Does it need to be so loud? Dead people can hear it.

By the way, I thought they were supposed to call you BACK if you hang up while on hold on 911. They don't.

I enjoyed this post.

Glad your husband was relatively okay, instead of having to recover from a blockage.

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by DocGoldstein

I enjoyed this post.

Glad your husband was relatively okay, instead of having to recover from a blockage.

Oh, yeah -- considering it was the week after my mother had died WAY faster than everyone had said she would.... when I got the news it was Bell's, that's when I got hysterical. Collapse on the floor hysterical. Hubs had to explain why I was hysterical after getting good news. It looked like I was really upset I wasn't going to get the life insurance money....

It's been two and a half years and it's almost all gone, but when he's stressed or really tired you can see it -- his right eye droops a little. His recovery was sort of amazing. He plateaued early, and the doctor essentially said this might be it, he might not get any better -- but what my husband heard was he was getting better.... A few weeks later I went to the doctor and he asked how hubs was taking the news. After I understood what he had REALLY told hubs, I had to tell the doc that he had some amazing progress since being told he was getting better..... almost overnight, his face just came back.