Redwood City takes on policing, racial equity

Policy recommendations, developed in the Ad Hoc Committee on Policing, included the development of a multi-year Equity Workplan which would focus on equity in public safety, city services and the community as a whole. The committee, on which Mayor Diane Howard, Vice Mayor Shelly Masur and Councilwoman Alicia Aguirre sit, also recommended creating a standing Public Safety Committee which would include members of the public who would potentially be tasked with police policy oversight such as reviewing use of force policies for potential biases. 

Though both recommendations received unanimous support from the council during the remote meeting and some sentiment of approval from the public, most of the more than 20 public speakers noted a disconnect between the proposed policies and those being called for by parts of the community, specifically to “defund the police.” The policy, often referred to as “descoping,” would divert police budgets to public resources like mental health, education and housing, and has grown in national popularity following the police killings of Black individuals. 

Questioning school resource officers 

Though the Equity Workplan would aim to accumulate greater data on police activity, foster stronger relationships with local schools and center diversity when making funding considerations, speakers and councilmembers questioned the Ad Hoc Committees suggestion to “clarify the role” of the Sequoia High School resource officer, a police officer contracted by the city to be stationed on the campus. 

During public listening sessions, moderated by the San Mateo-based Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center, many participants called for the removal of SROs on school campuses out of concern students of color were being disproportionately punished.

In August, the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District board voted to terminate a contract with the San Mateo Police Department which placed SROs on middle school campuses citing similar concerns. Stevenson Diaz said city staff has been communicating with the officials at the Sequoia Union High School District and Sequoia High School to determine an agreement. 

Mayor Diane Howard said school staff expressed an interest in maintaining the relationship with the Police Department while Councilwoman Alicia Aguirre said now may be the time to assess the need for the program for which parents and educators once pleaded. 

“Things change. We’re in a different time, now so we’re looking at it with a different lens. It’s not that the police were imposing or the city was imposing. We had to actually find a way as a city to help fund that … because the schools and parents really felt that was important to them,” said Aguirre, noting the discussion around equity is “messy.” 

Councilmembers also agreed school district officials should be brought into the work plan discussion around equity following strong community concern for disproportionate access to recourse among school campuses. 

Deciphering the data  

Speakers also often referenced a report completed by PCRC following the six dialogue sessions which noted that both descoping and defunding the police was referenced 62 times. The report was referenced by the Ad Hoc Committee when determining policy suggestions along with a police reform study by Stanford University.  

Frequently speakers referenced that the PCRC report noted 77% of the 347 session attendees felt little concern the city would defund or descope the police. Additionally, 75% of session participants expressed concern the council would “make symbolic or minimal gestures of change regarding systemic racism,” according to PCRC polling. 

While the dialogue sessions influenced the subcommittee’s recommendations, City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz said additional meetings and discussions with stakeholders also played a factor into policy recommendations. A list of additional groups and organizations engaged in discussion was presented in the staff report but no notes or policy recommendations from the meetings were detailed. 

“One of the things we tried to convey, and clearly not very well, in the written report is the work that PCRC did was really important … and it was one of several layers of communications that the city has had in the last several months. ... But there were other settings and … other feedback that the City Council has heard on an individual level and at a group level over time. So I don’t think it would be fair to characterize the findings out of the PCRC discussion as the only or cumulative feedback,” said Stevenson Diaz.  

Councilman Ian Bain also stressed to the public the importance of achieving a goal using persuasion rather than “harassment or intimidation or public shaming.” He also suggested outspoken individuals advocating for people of color speak for themselves while keeping an open mind to the diversity of opinions in the city. 

“When you’re hearing a lot of voices that agree with you it sounds like the whole community agrees with you so I wouldn’t take the output of [the PCRC report] as representing the entire community of 85,000 people we represent,” said Bain. 

Mental health first responders 

While city officials have not committed to redirecting police funding to other resources, the city has joined a county initiative which would contract mental health professionals to accompany police officers as emergency response support, a program inspired by the CAHOOTS programs in Eugene, Oregon. 

The CAHOOTS program works to reduce the number of calls officers respond to by tasking a dispatch team with determining which agency would be best fit to respond to the call. Stevenson Diaz noted the 35-year program was not instituted as an effort to defund the police and has substantially changed over time. 

The county program, in partnership with San Mateo, South San Francisco, Redwood City and Daly City police departments, would run as a one- to two-year pilot program. Each city would contract one social worker to accompany an officer but Bain pushed staff to consider contracting additional physicians for the program. 

Vice Mayor Shelly Masur suggested the program be developed to enable mental health providers to be “front facing” when interacting with individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. Mulholland said involved police chiefs are finalizing the program framework after meeting with a researcher from Stanford University, which is helping develop the final program recommendation. 

Stevenson Diaz said the program is still in the early planning stages and would require substantial work before being expanded. With the council’s affirmative direction, funds to develop the Equity WorkPlan will be set aside within the Fiscal Year 2020/21 budget but City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz said the plan would take form over the course of the year. 

sierra@smdailyjournal.com 

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