A Step Forward
The fate of reimagining public safety in Berkeley hangs in the balance. The initiative began in the Summer of 2020 when tens of thousands of Berkeleyans took to the street demanding change — demanding we defund the police and refund the community. You, the people, asked for a fundamental shift in how public safety is achieved.
On Thursday, May 5, the city council approved Mayor Arregiun’s proposal, a small step in that direction. This was in the face of strong opposition to community-centered public safety from both the City Manager and from almost half of the council. Here is what happened:
Mayor Arreguin renounced the police-centered “reimagining” recommendations of the City Manager, reported here in the last edition, and now it was his turn. He teamed up with Councilmembers Harrison, Hahn and Bartlett. They released their recommendations a few days before the special council meeting.
In reaction to the Mayor’s recommendations, Councilmembers Droste, Kesarwani, Wengraf and Taplin culled items from the City Manager’s recommendations and created their own set, primarily focused on, surprisingly, increasing funding to police, in direct opposition to the council’s vote in July 2020 committing to “a transformative approach to community-centered safety and reducing the scope of policing”.
The build up to the May 5th meeting was dramatic. Three council members sent similarly worded emails — playing on people’s fears — urging constituents to email a form letter to the council that started with “It is critical to the safety of our community that vacant positions in the Berkeley Police Department be filled.”
When the meeting began, the tension was palpable, even over Zoom. It was four vs. four, with Councilmember Robinson (District 7) as the deciding vote. The Droste/Taplin recommendations were voted on first and failed. Then, it was time to vote on the Mayor’s recommendations. The final vote was 7 in favor, 2 opposed — Droste and Kesarwani. This is a step — albeit small — in the direction of community-centered public safety.
The council also voted to lift the freeze on police staffing. It remains unclear why this is necessary. There is irrefutable mismanagement of police overtime (including undocumented outsourcing of BPD officers to private companies like Apple) and there are innumerable reports from residents of unnecessarily large numbers of police arriving on any scene, no matter the situation. Just a few days before the special council meeting, for example, 11 BPD officers were filmed on the scene of a very calm person in a mental health crisis.
If increasing the BPD budget would make crime decrease, we would have seen a decrease in crime over the past decade. Instead, what we’ve seen is a ballooning of the police budget while the crime rate has remained unchanged. Far from being defunded — as committed to by the city council in 2020 — the BPD budget has continued to rise with BPD requesting an unprecedented $87M for fiscal year 2023 (FY23), $9M more than their FY22 budget.
The more hawkish members of the council continue to point to the increase in gun violence as justification for more money to BPD. Actually, we need a proven gun violence reduction and prevention program, such as Ceasefire. If the council approves just $1M to fund a Ceasefire program to begin in July, studies show we can expect a dramatic reduction in gun incidents in our town by this time next year.
This article was first published in the Berkeley Times on May 12, 2022.
