Laserfiche WebLink
Plenty of my fellow community members will give you very detailed lists of many of the <br />inconsistencies, potential challenges within the budget and expenditures that we feel are <br />unnecessary for our community at this time. I also appreciate that many of the <br />community's asks regarding the police have been accommodated including what I feel <br />will be most important in our continued conversations, the data collection and publication <br />initiative, which will allow us to have a common language and understanding on what <br />works and doesn't work within our public safety system. <br />Councilmember Bain that we speak from my own experience. I am a person diagnosed <br />with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety, traits that run in my family. Four <br />members of my family have had suicide attempts, including myself, and one has died. If I <br />were to be in a position where I was so depressed that I needed help or feared I would <br />harm myself, I would NEVER call 911 in Redwood City for help and I have instructed my <br />partner not to either, because of what happened to Kyle Hart. I say this even with the <br />knowledge of the mental health pilot in place, because the likelihood that the -x1.25 FTE <br />of a social worker Redwood City will receive as part of this pilot. The only model in which <br />I would feel safe calling is one like CAHOOTS, where a social worker would arrive <br />unarmed, without police. Am I just supposed to wait several years until we get there? Is <br />that what you're asking of me? Are you asking that I wait another six months to a year for <br />you to hire an equity manager to tell you what the community members already told you <br />via the listening sessions? <br />As a white woman, I cannot claim to truly know the experiences of my community <br />members of different races, but I do know that all over the country and in this city, there <br />are people who I deeply empathize with who, like me, are afraid of the police because <br />they know that the police have a track record for harming people like them, for traits they <br />cannot change. There is NO solid evidence that Redwood City is any different. In fact, the <br />over $1.75 million that the city has paid out in settlements on behalf of the police <br />department in the past ten years would actually suggest that our police department, like <br />many others around this country, has a problem. Further, the use -of -force reforms that <br />RWC is just now implementing have been tested in other cities, where citizens are still <br />dying at the hands of the police (see Minnepolis, Seattle, San Francisco, etc.). And that is <br />why I am afraid. And that is why I join my community members tonight asking you to take <br />bolder action than what is proposed in this budget. Just because you feel safe with the <br />police does not mean that all your constituents do. Just because you have faith the police <br />will not kill someone in our city (which they already have) does not mean that all your <br />constituents do. Just because there hasn't been a wrongful death lawsuit that wipes out <br />this budget proposed tonight does not mean there won't be in the future. <br />Redwood City has the potential to be a city of equity. A city of radical compassion, where <br />everyone is housed, where no one dies at the hands of the police, where we preserve our <br />