Last night, I voted No on the 2021 budget. After a year in which Minnesota made national news for the police murder of #GeorgeFloyd and we spent weeks in civil unrest, this budget does very little to change police funding status quo.

My full remarks: https://fb.watch/2iuwdY53zh/ 

This budget comes in response to the uprisings, civil unrest and endless emergencies of the last difficult and painful year. We have a responsibility as a local government to both meet our community needs and fight for the reality that our city deserves.

The council proposal for this budget in some areas restores key priorities that our community depends on: more funding for parks, libraries, roads and other city services families need and use

It also guarantees funding for equity and justice priorities I have personally fought very hard for, including resources for tenant protections enforcement & early-stage community-first public safety initiatives passed last year that lay the groundwork for real community safety

At the same time, after a year in which MN made national news for the police murder of George Floyd and we spent weeks in a state of constant uprisings and civil unrest as a rightful reaction to that murder, this budget does very little to change the police funding status quo.

It is hard for me to understand why our Council would show so little movement on the most prominent national conversation about policing and police funding that we have had in recent memory.

It is especially hard for me to understand that given our significant investment in SPPD and the corresponding results we have to show for it as a community.

SPPD's budget is $120M+/year, & last year even w/reductions it maintained highest sworn strength # of officers in city history. Advocates for more funding who continually bring up crime stats do a good job making the case that w/record resources, SPPD is not preventing crime

Upon digging into the SPPD budget there is also a startling lack of transparency that illuminates why a department has succeeded so long in getting such a huge portion of city resources for so little effect.

Our public budget discussions have not begun to scratch the surface of the areas to fund our city and our futures by divesting from SPPD. I believe we could begin shifting money out of costly areas of SPPD and into community safety alternatives, including in the following ways:

K-9 Unit: Since just my time on the Council our city has paid out a combined $2.6M in settlements for SPPD K-9 attacks that badly injured people. Just last week we lived through the trauma of another person being shot at/attacked by a K-9 by our police while naked and unarmed

Despite being a smaller city than Minneapolis, our city and county sheriff K-9 units combined give us nearly twice as many K-9 units as they have, an example of how multiple levels of government over-fund policing despite what’s appropriate for the population.

And many in our community have rightfully called for us to disband the K-9 unit altogether, which would return another couple million dollars to our city for better use in public safety (our community-first public safety initiatives budget is just $1.4 million in comparison!).

Another questionable unit in SPPD is the community engagement unit, which is $8.2M in name of “community policing” but functions as more officers/over-policing instead of $$ directly back into community. We brought this concern up as something we should explore reducing

Community leaders have said this amount of funding would be life-changing for their neighborhood violence prevention work that often happens on an absolute shoestring budget. This is an area where we could fund our community to lead community engagement work -- not the police

Lastly, less officers period: These areas of SPPD are over $10M in taxpayer savings alone. But the vast, vast majority of police funding goes to our overall officer headcount and the built-in costs of maintaining it to very little result and often great additional cost.

We create safety not by funding more officers, but by taking care of people.

Until we divest from this costly department & into core areas of life that ensure community stability, the size of SPPD will grow & justify itself continually in a cycle where costs are never questioned no matter the fallout.

This status quo is not good enough for our community

The forthcoming Mayoral commission on alternatives to 911 calls is one opportunity for future investments that could save lives by sending emergency responders that aren’t police.

Our community-first public safety initiatives, which by the way total just $1.4M but received a level of scrutiny by this Council vastly different than the budget sessions with the $121M SPPD, represent a shift we’ve invested in that needs to scale up.

But we also have the power as a city to stop this cycle and shift funding from SPPD to fund real community safety.

I am one of very few CMs ready to support significant cuts to SPPD today. I am extremely discouraged our Council budget did not reflect overwhelming & historic community response to this year’s events with a significant reduction to police to fund alternatives that keep us safe

We received 100s of e-mails/calls/testimony w/an overwhelming message to divest from police to fund community safety. Your advocacy this budget cycle preserved our community-1st public safety programs & fought off increases to SPPD. But also we can/must do much better as a city

To the people who are fighting for this vision, you deserve more than lip service, because lives are on the line.
I will keep fighting with you.