BERKELEY — The Berkeley City Council has become the latest Bay Area city to partially defund its police department in the wake of national outrage over the George Floyd killing — slashing $9.2 million from its budget.
Mayor Jesse Arreguin described the 12% cut as “a down payment in reimagining public safety in Berkeley” as the city examines the best way to redirect money from the police department to other services.
“The overwhelming message (from the public) is that we do need to defund the police and we need to reinvest money from our police department budget into other community priorities, including expanding mental health, outreach and treatment, services for our homeless, housing and services that specifically address the needs of our Black and brown communities,” Arreguin said Wednesday during a meeting in which the council approved a new budget for the city.
Berkeley police Chief Andrew Greenwood couldn’t be reached for comment about how the cuts could impact his department.
Several other cities in California already have taken steps to gouge their police departments’ budgets. Los Angeles is redirecting $250 million from police toward health care and jobs programs, and San Francisco is prioritizing the redirection of funds toward that city’s Black community.
The San Leandro City Council last month agreed to pull $1.7 million from the police budget after hearing from dozens of people demanding changes in how law enforcement interacts with the public, and Oakland trimmed its police budget last week by $2.5 million.
Berkeley council members said they intend to reevaluate the role of police at a July 14 meeting and beginning in September will analyze data involving police stops and citations of African Americans and overtime costs from covering protests and providing mutual aid to neighboring cities such as Oakland.
Like other city departments, police won’t be allowed to fill vacancies as the city struggles to offset a $39 million shortfall in its 2020-21 budget.
The defunding action followed an ever-growing number of calls from Berkeley residents to either strip away the bulk of police funding or at least drastically change the way the department operates. Such demands have spread nationwide in response to the death of George Floyd, who was killed May 25 in Minneapolis when a police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.
Vice Mayor Cheryl Davila urged the council to slash the police budget by 50 percent, and council member Ben Barlett proposed a 25 percent cut. Both asked that adoption of the new budget be postponed beyond the July 1 deadline, but Arreguin said no.
Council member Kate Harrison said she too favors deeper cuts in police funding, but not necessarily in its ranks.
“I don’t think that cutting the size of the police department is the way to tackle” problems of racial inequities and use of force, she said, adding that questions about the number of stops and citations of African Americans should be addressed instead. “A smaller department is not necessarily a more equitable department, but I still support cutting the police department budget.”
Council member Rigel Robinson also stated his support to change policing. “Our community wants to transform police, and to that, I say, ‘Good,’ ” he said. “But to do that, we need to assemble a radical new approach to community safety.”
Arreguin and council members Rashi Kesarwani, Sophie Hahn, Susan Wengraf, Bartlett, Robinson, Harrison and Lori Droste voted for the new budget that includes the $9.2 million police department cut. Vice Mayor Davila abstained, saying she couldn’t support the budget in the face of hundreds of her constituents calling for a 50 percent cut in police funding.
At its July 14 meeting, the council is scheduled to consider the following proposals:
- Remove from the police departments such responsibilities as homeless outreach and services; substance abuse and mental health/crisis management; traffic and parking enforcement; neighborhood services; and code enforcement.
- Establish a community safety coalition and steering committee.
- Limit militarized weapons and equipment.
- Track progress on these initiatives on the city website.
“I believe that the key to community safety is community health and wellness,” Arreguín said. “That requires heavy investments in our community, and reduced investments in police.”
