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Orozco, Norma From: Barela, Waldo Sent: Monday, June 29, 2020 2:48 PM To: eComment Subject: FW: FY 2020-21 Budget Comments Categories: Correspondence From: Grace Pankau <genpankau@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, June 29, 20201:30 PM To: BudgetOffice <BudgetOffice@santa-ana.org> Subject: FY 2020-21 Budget Comments To whom it may concern: My name is Grace Pankau, and I live in Santa Ana. I am so proud to finally own a home in our great city. Our city faces many challenges at this time, primarily the pandemic which is dispproportiantely affecting Santa Ana residents as opposed to the residents of other Orange County cities. Police department takes 43% of Santa Ana's proposed budget for 2020-2021 leaving less room for healthcare, education, and other public services. We are all living through the same pandemic, and have seen firsthand the danger of not making healthcare a priority (USA accounts for 28% of global coronavirus deaths, despite representing only 4.25% of global population). While Orange County has had over 11,000 cases, our city (along with Anaheim) counts for a disproportionate amount of cases. While we have offered assistance to residents struggling with rent, it is imperative we shift even more of our resources to fighting this pandemic and supporting our residents in financial crisis. I want to see money allocated this coming year to deal with the current pandemic. Also, I feel the budget is choosing the wrong methods to address homelessness. Rather than paying for police overtime and code enforcement officers, I would like us to spend all of the funds on homeless outreach and engagement ( assuming this is being done by trained social workers, nurses, etc.) and steps that create more spaces for our Unsheltered Homeless. I hope we can reduce the size of the police department, so I do not support the creation of new police department positions. 1. Implement budget reforms that have the ultimate goal of re -distributing the police budget to other public services that promote equality and overall community health: a. Immediately commence designing, in conjunction with communities most negatively affected by police presence, a plan to defund the police system over a period of several years, and to invest the money removed from the police's budget into services such as but not limited to: i. Housing preservation and development; ii. Homeless services; iii. Education; iv. Healthcare, including mental health care; V. Youth and community development; vi. Mental health first responders; vii. Addiction counseling; viii. Violence interruption programs; ix. Trauma specialists;