Laserfiche WebLink
From: <br />Samantha Rajaram <br />To: <br />GRP -City Council <br />Subject: <br />RCPD and mental health program <br />Date: <br />Thursday, February 4, 20212:31:22 PM <br />CAUTION: This email originated from outside your organization. Exercise caution when <br />opening attachments or clicking links, especially from unknown senders. <br />Dear City Council, <br />I am writing to express my disappointment with the decision to go forward with the mental <br />health MOU shared with residents a couple weeks ago. So many residents expressed <br />unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the program, but the council seemed to have rendered <br />public dissent into tautology—nothing residents said or shared made a difference to the <br />council's eagerness to adopt this middle-of-the-road, unremarkable plan anyway. <br />So many of us took time out of our busy evenings with our families to participate in this <br />meeting because we believe in our duty as residents to speak up. But I doubt many of those <br />who spoke felt heard or acknowledged. Only one council member openly objected to the <br />program. <br />Nothing residents asked for was radical. We want the sorts of changes implemented in <br />Eugene, OR and Santa Rosa, CA. We have the opportunity to truly bring our city into a new <br />place in policing and addressing mental health crises—and given the stress so many of us are <br />under, such programs are urgently meaningful now. But here we are, again. Stuck with <br />moderation and an intransigence toward meaningful change. <br />Martin Luther King, Jr., in his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" warned of the danger of <br />moderation, stating that the "great stumbling block" toward freedom is not the KKK, but white <br />moderates "more devoted to `order' than to justice." These words came to mind as I listened to <br />my city's council members explaining to us why a mental health program decoupled from the <br />police was essentially impossible. <br />But it is not. It already exists: Eugene, OR and Santa Rosa, CA. And it will exist in other cities <br />too, at some point in the future. Just not our city—because we prioritize moderation over <br />vision, and despite the need and desire in our community for bold and decisive steps toward <br />justice. <br />Sincerely, <br />Samantha Rajaram, District 6 <br />