Costs of Occupy Oakland disputed but on the rise

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Oakland's police union has estimated that last week's sweep of the Occupy Oakland encampment - which re-established itself within days - cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

But Oakland officials say they do not know how much the city spent to take down 150 Occupy tents at Frank Ogawa Plaza on Oct. 25, clean up the place and then block campers from returning that evening.

With the camp back in full swing, the financially strapped city continues spending resources and funds on Occupy, and Wednesday's massive demonstration will cost the city in public safety overtime, cleanup, lost productivity of city workers and possibly lost sales tax revenue.

Every city department has been involved with Occupy in one way or another, according to city spokeswoman Karen Boyd. Homeless-outreach workers have checked on the camp, firefighters have looked for hazards, the finance department is handling various purchases, and the IT department set up an emergency operations center and also dealt with Web threats to the city website. Everyone in the mayor's office is involved.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/02/BA9V1LONC2.DTL

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The Oakland police union president was on Thom Hartmann today too.

[No Elephants]

1. And that is not counting the lawsuits for police brutality.

What's in that estimate anyway? Salaries that have to be paid anyway, or only legitimately extra costs?

[ZombieHorde]

2. How much has the 1% cost everyone? nt

[msongs]

3. why is opd wasting taxpayer money ? nt