There seems no end to Oakland’s government dysfunction.
Over a six-year period, fire inspectors failed to examine nearly 80 percent of buildings firefighters had referred to them for followup of dangerous conditions, according to a Bay Area News Group data analysis.
The acting fire chief’s response: A refusal to answer questions and a canned statement that the problems were due primarily to staffing shortages and computer database problems.
But if you want a sense of the community’s response, consider the comments of a man who lived next door to a building that burned down — one of those that was supposed to be inspected but never was.
“I guess this is Oakland,” he said. “You can’t really expect it.”
That’s how low the bar has sunk in the Bay Area’s third largest city. Residents have stopped expecting basic municipal services: Fire inspections. Police showing up when you call. Decent roads. Responsible management of public money.
Instead, this is the city where 36 people died in the infamous Ghost Ship warehouse inferno after firefighters ignored the dangerous conditions — and some had even attended a party there.
This is the city where four died in a fire at a halfway house, where 16 months earlier a firefighter had requested an inspection that never happened, and a few months before the blaze a fire captain had urged that the building be shut down, only to be overruled. The city where hillside fire inspection reports were apparently faked.
Where the police department is in its 14th year of federal court oversight, yet cops cavorted with a sexually exploited teenager and their behavior was first swept under the rug by fellow officers who conducted an inept investigation.
Where basic road maintenance is abandoned, allowing streets to deteriorate so badly that it will take $443 million, paid mostly with a new property tax, to fix it.
Where City Council members and mayors — be they named Dellums, Quan or Schaaf — cannot contain spending to the available funds despite the city’s high tax rates, including a hidden levy for pensions.
The outrages just keep coming.
On Friday, the new police chief, hired to restore stability to a badly mismanaged department, promoted people who oversaw the bungled sex-scandal investigation to top positions.
Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, in a departure from past practice, barred news coverage of the promotion ceremony. So much for transparency with the community.
On Sunday came news from reporters Thomas Peele, Matthias Gafni and David DeBolt about the fire inspection failures. Their in-depth analysis of city data shows that firefighters had referred 879 properties for fire code violations, but 696 were never inspected.
That includes more than 200 apartment buildings housing thousands of residents, commercial buildings and several schools. Of those that weren’t inspected, 16, including the halfway house, were scenes of subsequent fires.
Is this the best residents can expect? It’s time to raise the bar.
