Three years after transferring the work to OakDOT, the city is still sorting out the roles of transportation and police as service delivery has fluctuated.
What I know about DOT operations and current abandoned auto stats is nothing. Absolutely nothing.
However, as an admin support volunteer for OPD for many years, I worked in the traffic unit for about one year (2016-17) taking calls for service off voicemail and email and forwarding them to the techs assigned to each area. I can say with absolute certainty that the number of vehicles abandoned in our fair city was simply stupefying. We are a dumping ground for the greater Bay Area. Any day would see at least 50, although some were certainly repeat requests. After a 3-day holiday weekend, 75-100+ calls were the norm. By far, the majority were for East Oakland streets, the farther east, the higher the number. West Oakland was a smaller area but a very close second. Again, these aren’t numbers I pulled off a report, they are from my direct experience.
Because there were real risks to our techs from people angry about being towed, or under various chemical influences, they wore ballistic vests and had radios to call for officer assistance if needed quickly. DOT techs do not have these, at least they didn’t at the start. If a vehicle was ‘inhabited,’ or being used as a market for drugs, techs had to call on officers and/or social services to deal with those issues first.
This was not, is not a job for sissies. The reimaginers were committed to dealing with fantasies. With the exception of the three members who were firmly grounded in reality, they seemed to think: Cars. Parked on public streets. So…a parking, not police problem. (For awhile, they were also proposing the combination of 311 with 911, which demonstrated their profound level of ignorance about the work 911 dispatchers do as actual first responders, 24/7. The thinking, I guess, was 311 answers phones, 911 answers phones. Same same. All just a bunch of operations like the old AT&T switchboard operators. I read their proposals regularly and nearly tore all my hair out.)
There -are- ways to improve police and other services to Oaklanders. But to make realistic, effective, lasting changes, the deciders need to know the nuts and bolts of how and why things are currently done. Some current operations don’t work well due to badly outdated technology. Some are contingent upon other systems or department functions. Some are done because of laws and regulations. If one thing is changed, another may need to be as well.
I’ve never seen it happen in 50 years working in a wide variety of industries, but it would also be smart if the deciders would actually -listen- to those currently doing the work and hear their concerns not as resistance to change but as actual knowledge, based on years of experience, about how those changes could be managed and whether they will actually result in the intended improvements.
Hopin’ and wishin’ are notoriously ineffective, even destructive, management strategies. Cue Jiminy Cricket…
I think it would be an interesting exercise to compare the abandoned auto numbers with other cities. This wasn’t even a discussion in Atlanta. Also, it would be an interesting exercise to compare Oakland to SF. When it comes to towing, SFMTA is the lead agency, and all tow related activities go through their dispatch center. It’s an impressive facility, and they have been gracious to take time to show us how they do things. OakDOT doesn’t have the dispatch center. It doesn’t even have a dispatcher.
I agree about SFMTA. When I lived in San Francisco, enforcement was consistent and proactive. People knew that if they ignored street cleaning, blocked a corner, or accumulated enough tickets, there would eventually be consequences. That consistency made the entire system work.
What I see in West Oakland is the opposite. Around Raimondi Park, cars routinely block corner visibility and double or even triple park. Trucks idle and park where they aren’t supposed to despite the West Oakland Truck Management Plan. Street cleaning is often half-assed because people know they probably won’t be ticketed and don’t move their cars.
OakDOT also seems almost entirely complaint-driven. There is a car near Pine and 9th that hasn’t moved in roughly five years. Obviously abandoned cars can remain indefinitely unless someone files a 311 report and keeps following up. Even when Oakland does enforce, it often feels selective, based on who appears likely to pay rather than which violations cause the greatest safety or access problems.
The lack of a dispatcher seems like part of a broader institutional difference. SFMTA treats consistent enforcement as a necessary part of operating the transportation system. Oakland passes plans and regulations, but too often leaves residents to enforce them through 311.
Oakland's selective enforcement leaves many residents and small businesses on their own. This also applies to stolen cars. OPD will not respond unless it was the mayor's car that got stolen.
Well, of course. As C. R. Lomax astutely noted above, “The reimaginers were committed to dealing with fantasies.” Oakland is a national dumping ground for reimaginers, and the predictable result has been “Oakland can[’t] make [any] department work.”
I also think the comment about departments not working is one that lands in bounds and should be discussed. From my vantage point, the city does not have a vision for itself and the priorities to support the vision. As a result, folks are left to fight for limited resources. For example, I think we paved about 33 miles in the first half of 2026. That may not be exactly right, but it’s close. We have 800 miles of street (rounded off to make the math easier). We paved about 40% of the city prior to 2026 (also rounded off). That’s 480 miles that probably needs some attention, and we delivered 33 in the first half of the hear, and that is a respectable number when pre-2017 performance was typically less than 10 miles. Even if we hit 60 miles in 2026, that leaves 420 miles. Just a little more than half the city feels left out.
Here is the kicker. The biggest threat to pavement quality is water. What happens with sea level rise? We probably see ground water table rise. Now, our 30 year asset is a 10 year asset. Planning typically isn’t valued or rewarded in four year political cycles. That one is on the people, not the staff.
if you want people to move away from you immediately, ask them if the want to talk about storm drainage.
I’m okay with reimagining and reinventing. Things change. Organizations need to change too. I think Oakland’s challenge has been reluctance to meaningful change. The abandoned auto discussion is a good one. Even the language is misleading. We encounter several vehicle categories - abandoned, stolen, parked, snd inhabited. Often, parked vehicles look abandoned, and inhabited vehicles look abandoned. The category that worries me is stolen due to the fact that the person(s) who stole it may be nearby. That is a dangerous situation for a police officer. It is more dangerous for a parking control technician II.
You have summed it up well. We are complaint driven, but that is a policy decision the city has made. It’s neither good nor bad. It just is the policy. We have nowhere near the resources SFMTA has for this type of enforcement. Over the past two years, we have been investing in the parking enforcement side of the house. We went from 200k citations to almost 500k citations in two years. This effort highlighted that DOT is not good at collections. That has changed. Collections is now in Finance. Over the next two years, we will be investing in broader right of way management - abandoned autos, utility management, developer issues, etc. Personally, I’m supremely grateful to the generous time SFMTA has given to us. We have a lot to learn from them. We may not have the resources to copy everything, but they are a good model. Again, your comments are spot on. Thank you!!
there is no “ separate “ category for stolen vehicles.
all abandoned vehicle calls go thru 311 unless it is blocking a driveway or roadway. DOT cancels 100’s of these reports to try to lighten their out of control numbers. they make up their own rules and selectively enforce and too many times not enforce. the Department is 💯 unaccountable. no checks and balances no plan. the dept needs an audit
This is a worthwhile conversation. Unfortunately, a scan of the public record misses quite a bit of nuance related to this matter. Here are the comments I left on Rajni’s substack. The thing that concerns me the most is the high risk related to this work, especially at night. I think you will see what I mean from my own experience noted below.
Rajni…this was an insightful article. I may need to get you to show me how you pulled the data. When I arrived, we started measuring two simple metrics - service requests received and service requests fulfilled. That ratio has tended to be around 4:1 with annual tow around 3k-3.5k. Those numbers are off the top of my head. So, there is some margin of error.
Here is what the data you shared doesn’t show, and I would welcome any and all input. Some items have been addressed:
- the AAU (abandoned auto unit) has historically been involved with encampment operations and engaged in tasks ranging from placing closure signs to using our with vehicles (with flashing lights) for traffic control purposes; the encampment management team within the CAO has never had their own resources, and we help where we can; maybe this isn’t the right approach, and we should just focus the abandoned autos
- the AAU also supports a number of city special events and OPD operations with printing and placing the advance warnings for No Parking; this is another area where we filled an operational gap, but we aren’t towing when we are installing signs
- for the safety of the team, I made the operational decision that we do not engage with occupied vehicles; I believe this to be the correct operational and legal decision as we are not LEOs
- in 2025, 70% of the AAU team returned to parking enforcement as part of some temporary CAO operational changes
- prior to spring 2026, the permanent AAU positions did not exist; this means we are bound by the MOU with labor partners and had to rotate acting assignments every six months; basically, every six months we had a new team; fortunately, we now have people hired into permanent positions
- when the AAU was moved from OPD to DOT, the funding came from OPD’s general fund budget; an operational change was made to use Measure BB funding to pay for AAU, thereby freeing up the OPD general fund budget
- we have a good partnership with OPD and have been implementing “tow sweeps” that have been quite successful; OPD leads the tow sweeps; DOT is a financial partner; I’m sure you heard CM Houston talking about how effective it was at 105th, and a tow sweep was recently completed in D6; I think this is high ROI work; the efforts will remove 40 - 100 vehicles at one time
- we continue to struggle with stolen vehicles; the process is what the process is, but the numbers of stolen vehicles left in Oakland continues to rise; I had a personal experience with an “abandoned auto” on E14 / 86th Ave; I called the team to report it. By the time I got off the phone, two gentlemen were stripping the car; they were kind enough to show me their guns so I could leave; they left an auto frame in the street; I called that in; the frame was gone by the time the AAU team arrived; stolen vehicles are a challenge and can be dangerous; that is an area where we do need to learn more from OPD.
The AAU team does good work. Can our process improve? Yes. Can we remove more autos? Yes. I am always amused with the vehicle/person comparison with S.F. How many should we be able to remove on an annual basis? How do we prevent them from coming here in the first place?
I’m sure you know that an urbanist nerd like me leans into prevention like we did at Courtland Creek. We are now removing zero abandoned autos after redesigning and rebuilding the street. These answers we seek are in the data. I’d welcome input in goal setting. Right now, it seems like we are trying to get out of the “just do more” mode.
Josh, thank you for your comment, and for reading Oakland Report. In frankness, and with all due respect, what you describe sounds kind of like a clown car being pulled over by the Keystone cops. The data suggests that it isn't working very well, and the city administration appears to recognize this, having changed the organizational structure and responsibilities multiple times.
I’m not sure a clown car is the right description. The city “vehicle” being used for AAU work can certainly be improved, but the people doing the work are in no way clowns. In fact, their job is much more dangerous than people realize.
The biggest issue is volume. The second biggest issue is the rise in stolen vehicles. I don’t believe there is an organizational structure that will retrieve 20k autos per year. This is very similar to the garbage discussion. Why do we get 20k cars per year? How do we reduce the number? Why does OPW pick up 20 million pounds per year? How do we reduce that number? The solutions are different, but the nature of the issues is analogous.
There is another factor your article didn’t capture and that an AI scan of public documents won’t catch. Many of the cars we tag as “abandoned” move within the 72 hour warning window. The code says they must “move.” They aren’t actually abandoned. They are just old and/or banged up a little bit. Many of them are inhabited, and I already addressed that.
That parking reorganization from the former city administrator one year ago was totally bizarre. I have it on good authority the DOT leadership was not even at the table. They weren’t even consulted. It was simply an edict to reorganize and to do so outside of the budge process. Everything about it was off. It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now. If you recall, the plan was to move everything to finance. I’m not sure that would be an improvement over DOT. I have 2x requested an audit or investigation into the operations of DOT’s parking enforcement and AAU operations. I presume you saw the recent audit of the capital contracting practices that I requested in 2024 - good people trying to do a job with no process and no financial controls. Five firms doing 61% of the work.
If AAU and/or parking enforcement moved to another department, OPD would be a logical choice. However, it would be the same people facing the same issues with 20k abandoned autos and a rise in stolen vehicles being left in Oakland.
Seriously, why is the number so high? There must be more to this than Oakland has some handy pavement to abandon autos. Why do you think the number is so high? That might make for a good collaboration opportunity.
Anecdotally, I had folks thanking me for the improved AAU response times after the Faith in Action East Bay event at Allen Temple Baptist on Monday.
I’ll close with a fun one for you. Did you know that the OMC has not even been updated to reflect that parking enforcement is in DOT? It still shows everything in OPD. It’s just bizarre that these major operational changes were made by the city without the necessary changes to code. It is a bit chaotic.
Josh, thank you for your additional comment, but you are deflecting. "What you describe sounds like a clown car" refers to the description you offered, not to the employees. To be clear, as OakDOT's director, it seems that you are the driver of the city's abandoned vehicle response.
Also, you should know that Oakland Report is written and edited by humans, not by AI. Furthermore, the article includes citations and links to the primary source data so people can read it and decide for themselves what to think about it. (As we did.)
Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is very much appreciated.
I’m not deflecting at all. I disagreed with an editorial comment you made. Does the data show that city operations is a clown car led by keystone cops? Is that what you call journalism? I offered a clear explanation of where we are and where we are trying to go. In all due respect, it’s hard to take your work seriously when you are characterizing the work of dedicated city workers as a clown car. What is the definition of a clown car? How many abandoned autos did you deal with in your past professional experience? Is there a remote possibility that many of these issues we face today are the results of seeds planted sixty years ago? If you map where the issues are, they almost correspond with the past redlining practices in Oakland. How soon can we get some maps to go with the data to show where the issues are concentrated? I bet we intuitively know where. The question becomes - why? We likely know that answer too. Data can tell many stories. It can even tell the story you want it to tell.
311 requests do not differentiate between abandond or stolen vehicles. MANY of the reported vehicles are stolen and DOT’s response time is over 90 days to tow a car, by that time the car is usually stripped or occupied.
like I said I DOT closes many requests without ANY action someone with authority needs to step in and put someone who is capable and honest in charge
What I know about DOT operations and current abandoned auto stats is nothing. Absolutely nothing.
However, as an admin support volunteer for OPD for many years, I worked in the traffic unit for about one year (2016-17) taking calls for service off voicemail and email and forwarding them to the techs assigned to each area. I can say with absolute certainty that the number of vehicles abandoned in our fair city was simply stupefying. We are a dumping ground for the greater Bay Area. Any day would see at least 50, although some were certainly repeat requests. After a 3-day holiday weekend, 75-100+ calls were the norm. By far, the majority were for East Oakland streets, the farther east, the higher the number. West Oakland was a smaller area but a very close second. Again, these aren’t numbers I pulled off a report, they are from my direct experience.
Because there were real risks to our techs from people angry about being towed, or under various chemical influences, they wore ballistic vests and had radios to call for officer assistance if needed quickly. DOT techs do not have these, at least they didn’t at the start. If a vehicle was ‘inhabited,’ or being used as a market for drugs, techs had to call on officers and/or social services to deal with those issues first.
This was not, is not a job for sissies. The reimaginers were committed to dealing with fantasies. With the exception of the three members who were firmly grounded in reality, they seemed to think: Cars. Parked on public streets. So…a parking, not police problem. (For awhile, they were also proposing the combination of 311 with 911, which demonstrated their profound level of ignorance about the work 911 dispatchers do as actual first responders, 24/7. The thinking, I guess, was 311 answers phones, 911 answers phones. Same same. All just a bunch of operations like the old AT&T switchboard operators. I read their proposals regularly and nearly tore all my hair out.)
There -are- ways to improve police and other services to Oaklanders. But to make realistic, effective, lasting changes, the deciders need to know the nuts and bolts of how and why things are currently done. Some current operations don’t work well due to badly outdated technology. Some are contingent upon other systems or department functions. Some are done because of laws and regulations. If one thing is changed, another may need to be as well.
I’ve never seen it happen in 50 years working in a wide variety of industries, but it would also be smart if the deciders would actually -listen- to those currently doing the work and hear their concerns not as resistance to change but as actual knowledge, based on years of experience, about how those changes could be managed and whether they will actually result in the intended improvements.
Hopin’ and wishin’ are notoriously ineffective, even destructive, management strategies. Cue Jiminy Cricket…
I think it would be an interesting exercise to compare the abandoned auto numbers with other cities. This wasn’t even a discussion in Atlanta. Also, it would be an interesting exercise to compare Oakland to SF. When it comes to towing, SFMTA is the lead agency, and all tow related activities go through their dispatch center. It’s an impressive facility, and they have been gracious to take time to show us how they do things. OakDOT doesn’t have the dispatch center. It doesn’t even have a dispatcher.
I agree about SFMTA. When I lived in San Francisco, enforcement was consistent and proactive. People knew that if they ignored street cleaning, blocked a corner, or accumulated enough tickets, there would eventually be consequences. That consistency made the entire system work.
What I see in West Oakland is the opposite. Around Raimondi Park, cars routinely block corner visibility and double or even triple park. Trucks idle and park where they aren’t supposed to despite the West Oakland Truck Management Plan. Street cleaning is often half-assed because people know they probably won’t be ticketed and don’t move their cars.
OakDOT also seems almost entirely complaint-driven. There is a car near Pine and 9th that hasn’t moved in roughly five years. Obviously abandoned cars can remain indefinitely unless someone files a 311 report and keeps following up. Even when Oakland does enforce, it often feels selective, based on who appears likely to pay rather than which violations cause the greatest safety or access problems.
The lack of a dispatcher seems like part of a broader institutional difference. SFMTA treats consistent enforcement as a necessary part of operating the transportation system. Oakland passes plans and regulations, but too often leaves residents to enforce them through 311.
Oakland's selective enforcement leaves many residents and small businesses on their own. This also applies to stolen cars. OPD will not respond unless it was the mayor's car that got stolen.
Well, of course. As C. R. Lomax astutely noted above, “The reimaginers were committed to dealing with fantasies.” Oakland is a national dumping ground for reimaginers, and the predictable result has been “Oakland can[’t] make [any] department work.”
I also think the comment about departments not working is one that lands in bounds and should be discussed. From my vantage point, the city does not have a vision for itself and the priorities to support the vision. As a result, folks are left to fight for limited resources. For example, I think we paved about 33 miles in the first half of 2026. That may not be exactly right, but it’s close. We have 800 miles of street (rounded off to make the math easier). We paved about 40% of the city prior to 2026 (also rounded off). That’s 480 miles that probably needs some attention, and we delivered 33 in the first half of the hear, and that is a respectable number when pre-2017 performance was typically less than 10 miles. Even if we hit 60 miles in 2026, that leaves 420 miles. Just a little more than half the city feels left out.
Here is the kicker. The biggest threat to pavement quality is water. What happens with sea level rise? We probably see ground water table rise. Now, our 30 year asset is a 10 year asset. Planning typically isn’t valued or rewarded in four year political cycles. That one is on the people, not the staff.
if you want people to move away from you immediately, ask them if the want to talk about storm drainage.
I’m okay with reimagining and reinventing. Things change. Organizations need to change too. I think Oakland’s challenge has been reluctance to meaningful change. The abandoned auto discussion is a good one. Even the language is misleading. We encounter several vehicle categories - abandoned, stolen, parked, snd inhabited. Often, parked vehicles look abandoned, and inhabited vehicles look abandoned. The category that worries me is stolen due to the fact that the person(s) who stole it may be nearby. That is a dangerous situation for a police officer. It is more dangerous for a parking control technician II.
You have summed it up well. We are complaint driven, but that is a policy decision the city has made. It’s neither good nor bad. It just is the policy. We have nowhere near the resources SFMTA has for this type of enforcement. Over the past two years, we have been investing in the parking enforcement side of the house. We went from 200k citations to almost 500k citations in two years. This effort highlighted that DOT is not good at collections. That has changed. Collections is now in Finance. Over the next two years, we will be investing in broader right of way management - abandoned autos, utility management, developer issues, etc. Personally, I’m supremely grateful to the generous time SFMTA has given to us. We have a lot to learn from them. We may not have the resources to copy everything, but they are a good model. Again, your comments are spot on. Thank you!!
there is no “ separate “ category for stolen vehicles.
all abandoned vehicle calls go thru 311 unless it is blocking a driveway or roadway. DOT cancels 100’s of these reports to try to lighten their out of control numbers. they make up their own rules and selectively enforce and too many times not enforce. the Department is 💯 unaccountable. no checks and balances no plan. the dept needs an audit
This is a worthwhile conversation. Unfortunately, a scan of the public record misses quite a bit of nuance related to this matter. Here are the comments I left on Rajni’s substack. The thing that concerns me the most is the high risk related to this work, especially at night. I think you will see what I mean from my own experience noted below.
Rajni…this was an insightful article. I may need to get you to show me how you pulled the data. When I arrived, we started measuring two simple metrics - service requests received and service requests fulfilled. That ratio has tended to be around 4:1 with annual tow around 3k-3.5k. Those numbers are off the top of my head. So, there is some margin of error.
Here is what the data you shared doesn’t show, and I would welcome any and all input. Some items have been addressed:
- the AAU (abandoned auto unit) has historically been involved with encampment operations and engaged in tasks ranging from placing closure signs to using our with vehicles (with flashing lights) for traffic control purposes; the encampment management team within the CAO has never had their own resources, and we help where we can; maybe this isn’t the right approach, and we should just focus the abandoned autos
- the AAU also supports a number of city special events and OPD operations with printing and placing the advance warnings for No Parking; this is another area where we filled an operational gap, but we aren’t towing when we are installing signs
- for the safety of the team, I made the operational decision that we do not engage with occupied vehicles; I believe this to be the correct operational and legal decision as we are not LEOs
- in 2025, 70% of the AAU team returned to parking enforcement as part of some temporary CAO operational changes
- prior to spring 2026, the permanent AAU positions did not exist; this means we are bound by the MOU with labor partners and had to rotate acting assignments every six months; basically, every six months we had a new team; fortunately, we now have people hired into permanent positions
- when the AAU was moved from OPD to DOT, the funding came from OPD’s general fund budget; an operational change was made to use Measure BB funding to pay for AAU, thereby freeing up the OPD general fund budget
- we have a good partnership with OPD and have been implementing “tow sweeps” that have been quite successful; OPD leads the tow sweeps; DOT is a financial partner; I’m sure you heard CM Houston talking about how effective it was at 105th, and a tow sweep was recently completed in D6; I think this is high ROI work; the efforts will remove 40 - 100 vehicles at one time
- we continue to struggle with stolen vehicles; the process is what the process is, but the numbers of stolen vehicles left in Oakland continues to rise; I had a personal experience with an “abandoned auto” on E14 / 86th Ave; I called the team to report it. By the time I got off the phone, two gentlemen were stripping the car; they were kind enough to show me their guns so I could leave; they left an auto frame in the street; I called that in; the frame was gone by the time the AAU team arrived; stolen vehicles are a challenge and can be dangerous; that is an area where we do need to learn more from OPD.
The AAU team does good work. Can our process improve? Yes. Can we remove more autos? Yes. I am always amused with the vehicle/person comparison with S.F. How many should we be able to remove on an annual basis? How do we prevent them from coming here in the first place?
I’m sure you know that an urbanist nerd like me leans into prevention like we did at Courtland Creek. We are now removing zero abandoned autos after redesigning and rebuilding the street. These answers we seek are in the data. I’d welcome input in goal setting. Right now, it seems like we are trying to get out of the “just do more” mode.
Josh, thank you for your comment, and for reading Oakland Report. In frankness, and with all due respect, what you describe sounds kind of like a clown car being pulled over by the Keystone cops. The data suggests that it isn't working very well, and the city administration appears to recognize this, having changed the organizational structure and responsibilities multiple times.
I’m not sure a clown car is the right description. The city “vehicle” being used for AAU work can certainly be improved, but the people doing the work are in no way clowns. In fact, their job is much more dangerous than people realize.
The biggest issue is volume. The second biggest issue is the rise in stolen vehicles. I don’t believe there is an organizational structure that will retrieve 20k autos per year. This is very similar to the garbage discussion. Why do we get 20k cars per year? How do we reduce the number? Why does OPW pick up 20 million pounds per year? How do we reduce that number? The solutions are different, but the nature of the issues is analogous.
There is another factor your article didn’t capture and that an AI scan of public documents won’t catch. Many of the cars we tag as “abandoned” move within the 72 hour warning window. The code says they must “move.” They aren’t actually abandoned. They are just old and/or banged up a little bit. Many of them are inhabited, and I already addressed that.
That parking reorganization from the former city administrator one year ago was totally bizarre. I have it on good authority the DOT leadership was not even at the table. They weren’t even consulted. It was simply an edict to reorganize and to do so outside of the budge process. Everything about it was off. It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now. If you recall, the plan was to move everything to finance. I’m not sure that would be an improvement over DOT. I have 2x requested an audit or investigation into the operations of DOT’s parking enforcement and AAU operations. I presume you saw the recent audit of the capital contracting practices that I requested in 2024 - good people trying to do a job with no process and no financial controls. Five firms doing 61% of the work.
If AAU and/or parking enforcement moved to another department, OPD would be a logical choice. However, it would be the same people facing the same issues with 20k abandoned autos and a rise in stolen vehicles being left in Oakland.
Seriously, why is the number so high? There must be more to this than Oakland has some handy pavement to abandon autos. Why do you think the number is so high? That might make for a good collaboration opportunity.
Anecdotally, I had folks thanking me for the improved AAU response times after the Faith in Action East Bay event at Allen Temple Baptist on Monday.
I’ll close with a fun one for you. Did you know that the OMC has not even been updated to reflect that parking enforcement is in DOT? It still shows everything in OPD. It’s just bizarre that these major operational changes were made by the city without the necessary changes to code. It is a bit chaotic.
Josh, thank you for your additional comment, but you are deflecting. "What you describe sounds like a clown car" refers to the description you offered, not to the employees. To be clear, as OakDOT's director, it seems that you are the driver of the city's abandoned vehicle response.
Also, you should know that Oakland Report is written and edited by humans, not by AI. Furthermore, the article includes citations and links to the primary source data so people can read it and decide for themselves what to think about it. (As we did.)
Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is very much appreciated.
I’m not deflecting at all. I disagreed with an editorial comment you made. Does the data show that city operations is a clown car led by keystone cops? Is that what you call journalism? I offered a clear explanation of where we are and where we are trying to go. In all due respect, it’s hard to take your work seriously when you are characterizing the work of dedicated city workers as a clown car. What is the definition of a clown car? How many abandoned autos did you deal with in your past professional experience? Is there a remote possibility that many of these issues we face today are the results of seeds planted sixty years ago? If you map where the issues are, they almost correspond with the past redlining practices in Oakland. How soon can we get some maps to go with the data to show where the issues are concentrated? I bet we intuitively know where. The question becomes - why? We likely know that answer too. Data can tell many stories. It can even tell the story you want it to tell.
311 requests do not differentiate between abandond or stolen vehicles. MANY of the reported vehicles are stolen and DOT’s response time is over 90 days to tow a car, by that time the car is usually stripped or occupied.
like I said I DOT closes many requests without ANY action someone with authority needs to step in and put someone who is capable and honest in charge