Correspondence - #14, #18 and #21

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Dear City Councilmembers, My name is Gema Suarez and I’m have worked in Santa Ana in Ward 2 with El Centro Cultural de Mexico. I would like to express my support for Agenda item #18, the resolution Declaring Support of the HOME Act AB1306. I know community members who would benefit from this policy. The HOME Act ensures that immigrant and refugee communities who have earned release through past criminal justice reforms are protected from the brutal and unjust double punishment applied when they are transferred from prison to ICE immigration detention. This bill specifically provides relief for those who have received their convictions as youth, elderly, and medical parole releases. This is one critical step toward making California a true sanctuary state for immigrants and refugees, and as the first city in Orange County to declare itself a sanctuary city, Santa Ana must take this stand to end ICE transfers. In addition, I would like to express my strong support for Agenda item #21, the proposal to create an ordinance requiring supermajority approval for future amendments to Santa Ana’s Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Eviction Ordinance. I am a renter myself and I believe in participatory democracy and development without displacement. As a city where renters constitute the majority, these ordinances have provided a brief respite from drastic rent increases eligible units since their enactment. Given that wages have failed to keep pace with rising rent costs, allowing providers to increase rents by more than 3% annually creates an unnecessarily unstable living condition for the majority of the city’s residents. It is imperative that the current city council takes the necessary steps to safeguard a tremendously popular city policy that has brought significant relief to a substantial portion of our city. Lastly, I would like to express my strong opposition to Agenda item #14, the Master Service Agreement with Lexipol. I believe in safety but do not support unnecessary state violence. Alarming reports from both the ACLU of Washington and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project illuminate a deeply troubling pattern surrounding Lexipol – an unsettling history marred by the formulation of policies that scarcely scrape by the bare legal minimum. By using broad and vague language, their policies are written in such a way that serve to protect police officers and limit a police department’s liability rather than establish best practices to protect the public. Lexipol policies have historically included provisions that authorize the use of force in situations that are unnecessary, which have led to excessive force incidents and harm toward people by police officers. Alongside the heightened risk of lawsuits, the harm that Lexipol’s policies have caused and will continue to cause to the broader public should stand as sufficient reason why contracting Lexipol to draft policies for the city of Santa Ana should be avoided. Again, I support Agenda items #18 & 21 and oppose Agenda item #14. Thank you. Sincerely, Gema Suarez