Dear City Council, My name is Emma and I am a 19 year old resident of Menlo Park. Although I attend college out of state, I have grown up in Menlo Park my whole life, and care deeply about this community and its future. I called into yesterday's town hall, and I appreciate Mayor Taylor and Chief Bertini taking the time to speak with the community. However, I would like to offer my remaining concerns, in addition to what I hope are tangible actions the city council can take moving forward. What I felt was missing from yesterday's town hall was a focused conversation on the systemic issues of racism and police violence, and critical reflection about how that might appear here in Menlo Park. What the protests erupting around the nation have shown us is that the institution of police in the U.S. is racist (not just certain individual police officers). This is not only apparent from the repeated instances of deadly police violence against Black people across the nation, but in the history of policing in the U.S. The origins of the police force are slave patrols in the South and protecting the interests of wealthy business owners in the North. I think it would be naive for us to assume that the MPPD is immune to the same forces of systemic racism that our country is built on. While I was glad to hear that MPPD has already adopted reforms like implicit bias training, limits on use of force, and accountability measures, as well as adopting President Obama's recommendations for 21st Century Policing, I frankly believe that reform is not enough. A prime example of this is San Francisco's police department, which has adopted all the same measures as MPPD, but still was under investigation from the DOJ just two years ago for these same issues: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/The-5-San-Francisco-police-shootings-that-put-the-12941386.php . For this reason, I urge you to divest funds from the police department and into community services such as education, affordable housing, job creation, and healthcare. I know this comes at a particularly pertinent moment as the city decides how to account for budget cuts because of COVID-19. We need to be investing in communities and NOT police, both now and in the long term. San Francisco and Los Angeles are good examples of two cities that have already committed to moving funds from police budgets and towards communities: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-leaders-say-they-ll-redirect-police-funds-to-15318633.php , https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-05/eric-garcetti-lapd-budget-cuts-10000-officers-protests . Again, this is not a judgment on Chief Bertini or his officers as individuals, but what I believe are necessary actions to create a more just, equitable community. We need to start thinking seriously about alternative justice systems that do not involve police, and how that might look in Menlo Park. In the meantime, I also urge you to consider forming a civilian oversight board that the MPPD will be accountable to -- we need community control. Movement for Black Lives has more detailed policy recommendations and examples of what civilian oversight boards look like on their website: https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/community-control/ As a young person in Menlo Park, this is the kind of future I want to live in, and I hope you will seriously consider the ideas I have put forth. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Emma Dewey Received on Fri Jun 05 2020 - 14:11:31 PDT
