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Orozco, Norma From: Transforming Justice OC < Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2023 10:34 AM To: eComment Subject: Agenda Item 14: Opposition to Lexipol Contract Attachments: TJOC Letter - Santa Ana City Council - Oppose Agenda Item 14_ Lexipol Contract.pdf August 29, 2023 Mayor Amezcua and City Councilmembers 20 Civic Center Plaza Santa Ana, CA 92701 ecomment(cr�,santa-ana.org Via Email RE: Item 14: Approve Master Service Agreement with Lexipol, LLC to Provide Policy Manual Maintenance and Support to the Police Department Dear Mayor Amezcua and City Councilmembers, Transforming Justice Orange County (TJOC) urges you to vote NO on Item 14, the proposal to Approve the Master Service Agreement with Lexipol, LLC to Provide Policy Manual Maintenance and Support to the Police Department (Department). Instead, we urge you to explore alternatives that involve community driven policies with public feedback. The City should explore options such as allocating additional resources to the City Attorney's office for in-house police policy maintenance and collaborate with the newly established City's Police Oversight Commission (Commission) to oversee and monitor the Department Policies. TJOC is committed to reimagining justice, safety, and accountability, through ending individual, collective, and systemic oppression by carceral systems. Our mission is to right the social wrongs carried out by the carceral system through social-systemic transformation, while at the same time working to meet the immediate needs of incarcerated and system-impacted individuals and communities. We do this by working locally to build alternatives through community engagement and mobilization; public education; public advocacy; and leadership development. We believe this work includes responding to the concerns of community around controversial companies like Lexipol who have a troubled history of creating cloudy policing practices that don't abide by California laws that are in place. Last year, the Council unanimously delayed the approval of the proposed contract with Lexipol due to community concerns. City staff committed to come back with alternatives to the company's services, ones involving public feedback. However, as of now, no further updates or public feedback have been provided to determine alternatives. The City must remain committed to addressing community concerns and ensuring transparency by having the public provide their input in the process. Lexipol is a police lobbying group that subverts state law and best policing practices by selling boilerplate policies to police departments. In 2020, after the California Legislature passed AB 392: the necessary standard for police use of deadly force, Lexipol released an unlawful use of force policy that several local law enforcement agencies, including the City's Department, purchased and adopted. Organizations such as Chispa and ACLU SoCal successfully contested this policy, and worked alongside the City to bring it in compliance 1