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Salas, Diana From:Janine Maria <brokensouvenir@msn.com> Sent:Tuesday, June 16, 2020 10:15 AM To:eComment Subject:City Meeting 6/16/2020 Comments - Items 75A, 85A, and 20C To Mayor Pulido and Councilmembers: My name is Janine Stallings, I am a homeowner in the Memorial Park area of Santa Ana. I am writing to ask that the City Council reject the police budget for FY 2020-2021 and all planned police related expenditures. The proposed budget increases spending for police at a time when we are seeing budget shortfalls due to COVID-19, and mass demonstrations demanding a reimagining of how we spend money for issues currently being handled by police. This is also immediately following the Santa Ana police union purchasing a special election to remove a Councilmember they did not like. This kind of corruption should not stand. Reject the budget in its current form. Over time we have asked the police to do more and more, and we have allocated resources away from services that prevent crime in favor of policing and incarceration. Let's put our money where our values are. Defund the police and increase spending for social services, education, libraries, homelessness services, mental health, affordable housing, public health, public transit, immigrant services, and programs for low income residents. Reimagine how we respond to emergency calls. Send Social Workers and case managers to calls regarding mental health and homelessness (and stop criminalizing homelessness). Send Social Workers and workers better trained in de-escalation to domestic calls. Send detectives, victim support advocates, and case workers when crimes are reported after the fact. Demilitarize the police. These are just some obvious possibilities - rethink every type of call and every line item being spent on police now, and determine if it can be better handled in a different way. This should lead to a massive divestment of police in favor of actual public safety and community investment. Approve item 85A. Create an oversight committee including citizen involvement. The committee should have investigative powers and real teeth to hold police accountable. The committee should be well positioned to suggest alternative spending options. Fund the committee. Engage the community. Address the corrupt relationship between the Council and the police union. The police union should not be able to use the distraction of a pandemic to force a special election and oust a Councilmember. If you were to support rethinking police spending, would your position on the Council be at risk too? That is corruption. Seize this moment to get the Council out from under the thumb of the police union. Thank you, Janine Stallings 2116 S Sycamore St, Santa Ana 1