Sacramento Black leaders to Mayor Steinberg: ‘Defund’ $20 million from police budget
A group of high profile leaders in Sacramento’s Black community are throwing their weight behind a growing “defund the police” movement in Sacramento, demanding Mayor Darrell Steinberg remove $20 million in Measure U sales tax money from the police budget.
“To begin, we are unequivocal in our demand that structural change happen at a pace that reflects the urgency of the moment,” reads the letter obtained by The Sacramento Bee. “We believe the proposed 24-month time period for deeper reform is far too passive a response for a crisis that places the physical and economic lives of every Black resident in our city at risk.
We are also calling for the immediate return of $20 million of Measure U tax proceeds that have been allocated to the Police Department back to the Measure U Community Advisory Committee for distribution to support an inclusive economic and youth-centered agenda.”
The letter, sent to the mayor Wednesday, is signed by Chet Hewitt, president and CEO of the The Center at Sierra Health Foundation; Pastor Les Simmons, who’s running for City Council to represent Meadowview, Parkway and Valley Hi; Derrell Roberts, co-founder of the Roberts Family Development Center; Malaki Amen, executive director of the California Urban Partnership; Berry Accius, founder of Voice of the Youth; and Ryan McClinton, an activist. The letter was sent in partnership with the Build.Black Coalition and The Center at Sierra Health Foundation.
The letter references Steinberg’s police reform proposal that would overhaul the city’s 911 system so police no longer respond to noncriminal calls and also create an inspector general position. Steinberg expects the City Council to vote on the proposal June 30, but the change could take up to two years to fully implement.
Steinberg invited the men who signed the letter to be on a new community task force he’s creating to design the 911 overhaul.
“It is important to get this systemic change right and to do it as quickly as possible,” Steinberg said in a statement to The Bee. “I am appointing a community task force to help me and the city design this fundamental shift of duties and resources from the police to a new human services outreach department in our city. I am specifically asking the signatories of the Build.Black letter to be the first members. Help me put your words into action. The first meeting: Monday.”
Hewitt, Accius, and Roberts said they would attend.
“We believe Darrell is the person to get this done, but we reserve the right to engage in healthy debate about what the process should look like,” said Hewitt, a self-described friend of the mayor, who frequently stands by his side in press conferences.
Steinberg has said he does not support the “defund the police” movement but that his 911 overhaul would likely remove at least $10 million from the police department.
Hewitt praised the mayor’s police reform proposal but pushed him to improve it.
“We believe what what the mayor has proposed is good and insufficient at the same time,” Hewitt said. “Our defund movement is not about zero balancing out the police budget. What we’re saying in this period of rapid transformation, that everybody has got to give up something.”
Flojaune Cofer, chairwoman of the Measure U Citizens Advisory Committee, has said she wants the City Council to remove the full $45.7 million in Measure U funds set to go to the police department in the fiscal year that starts July 1. That figure includes Measure U sales tax revenue the city received as a result of both the 2012 and 2018 ballot measures.
The 2018 Measure U revenue was supposed to largely go toward inclusive economic development initiatives to uplift the city’s disadvantaged communities. When the coronavirus hit, the city used the money for core services instead. To make up for that, Steinberg has said he wants to use $89 million in federal stimulus money on initiatives to help undeserved communities that were also hit hardest by the virus.
Before the virus hit, the council spent new Measure U money on a list of initiatives to uplift disadvantaged neighborhoods, including “pop up” activity nights for teens, a project led by the Sierra Health Foundation, which are ongoing. The foundation since 2019 has so far received about $2.85 million, partly in Measure U money.
The Roberts Family Development Center received about $400,000 in city funding last year for youth programming. That funding helped the nonprofit, which serves hundreds of kids, but Roberts was hoping to get additional Measure U money this year to help finish renovating the north Sacramento center, he said.
Then coronavirus hit.
“In north Sacramento, we don’t have a community center. The Roberts Family Development Center is it,” Roberts said. “There is not enough facilities open to our kids in north Sacramento and Del Paso Heights.”
It’s unclear if the demand to move $20 million be cut from the police budget, an important component to the coalition, will be discussed at the meeting with the mayor Monday.
“I’m looking forward to joining the mayor at this meeting but I think we really need to have a true partnership in framing what the solutions will be,” Amen said.
Accius agreed. He said he plans to go to the first meeting, but if it doesn’t appear to be a vehicle for real change, he won’t participate in the task force going forward.
“We’re the bridge. We’re the people who talk to folks in the community. We represent the community. We can’t just have you give us something that you think is gonna be okay,” Accius said. “Our demands are still our demands.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 10:19 AM.
