EscInd: Weekly Action Plan for May 24, 2021
Welcome to Escondido Indivisible’s weekly action plan for May 24, 2021! Pick an action or two and commit yourself to doing them. Check out the CA50 Coalition on Facebook which started hosting phone banking events for voter registration in District 50 on Sundays. More info is on its Facebook group.
Events
- Wednesday﹣Thursday, May 26﹣27, 2021, 9:00 AM: San Diego County Board of Supervisors Budget Group Presentations for 2021/22 and 2022/23 from the Public Safety Group, Health and Human Services Agency, Land Use and Environment Group, and Finance and General Government Group via teleconference. Live broadcast of the meeting will be at sandiegocounty.gov here. Public comments may be made via eComment service or via email to publiccomment@sdcounty.ca.gov. See Voice Your Opinion.
- Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 5:00 PM: Escondido City Council Meeting at City Hall Council Chambers, 201 North Broadway, Escondido, CA 92025. ***Note: this meeting will be in-person (no masking requirement) though public comment can still be made online.*** Agenda includes Item #13 on how public comments are made and received while the council city meetings are in-person but the city is still under public health restrictions. Live broadcast of the meeting will be at escondido.org here. Public comments may be made via Public Comment Form.
Future Events
- Wednesday, June 9, 2021, 5:00 PM: Escondido City Council Meeting at City Hall Council Chambers, 201 North Broadway, Escondido, CA 92025. Agenda will include a public hearing on budget for 2021/22.
Voting Rights
- Read-up on For the People Act Is Debated By The Senate Rules Committee and Democrats confront reality on voting rights: Congress probably isn’t coming to the rescue.
- Contact Senator Feinstein and Senator Padilla and express support for H.R.1/S.1 to strengthen our democracy. Thank them for being co-sponsors of S.1. Note that Representative Issa voted no on H.R.1, but the House passed the bill with a 220-210 vote. See Indivisible Democracy Guide, Indivisible Guide on H.R. 1: Strengthening Our Democracy and Support Democracy Reform with H.R. 1/S. 1.
- Contact Assemblymember Waldron and State Senator Jones and ask them to support AB-37 to extend vote by mail to all elections in California.
Police Accountability
- Read-up on Policing reforms came to San Diego, but for activists the biggest changes remain elusive and A year later, Amaurie Johnson reflects on La Mesa arrest that sparked local protests.
- Contact Assemblymember Waldron and State Senator Jones and ask them to support SB-2 to create a decertification process for peace officers. Senator Jones voted no thrice against holding police accountable for misconduct or criminal conviction in the Senate Judiciary and Appropriations committees. See #TeamJustice Supports SB2 (with an email template for Senator Jones), SB-2 Fact Sheet and Police Decertification Bill Moves Forward (scroll down).
- In related-news: read-up on Why do police edit body cam footage?, Bay Area police shooting videos follow same recipe; critics call it 'slick marketing', ‘They kill the person twice’: police spread falsehoods after using deadly force, analysis finds, and What We Learned This Week on Policing.
Escondido City Budget
- Watch replay of the Escondido City Council Public Hearing on plans for 2021/2022 City Budget under Item #15-B. Of note, the city is proposing to reinstate “one Public Safety Dispatcher position, two Traffic Police Officers [for DUI checkpoints] and three COPPS Police Officers to help address homelessness response” (pg. 12 of Agenda Item #15-B). We’ve previously highlighted (1) how the city and police department have not provided any accounting to the community on the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints in Escondido or that these sobriety checkpoints do not still disproportionately target communities of color, and (2) how important it is for our city to fund non-law enforcement programs for homelessness outreach (rather than fund more homelessness enforcement). The budget will be up for a hearing and vote on June 9, 2021. The vote will “adopt an operating budget for certain city funds effective July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022”.
- Contact the Escondido City Council and call for a budget that invests more than 15% in our communities and for more funding in community-based programs and services. Invest more in non-law enforcement programs for homelessness outreach and streets/traffic safety infrastructure (rather than fund more homelessness & traffic enforcement which disproportionately target communities of color). See Re-imagining Public Safety and Actions to Hold the Police Accountable (PDF version), Daunte Wright and the police’s grim financial incentive behind traffic stops and Police Hold 'Extraordinary' Power In Traffic Stops, Law Professor Says.
Escondido Indivisible is a grassroots group dedicated to affecting changes in our local community. Our website is at EscondidoIndivisible.com, and our sister group is at Escondido Indivisible on Facebook. Send us links and comments at EscondidoIndivisible50@gmail.com and @EscInd50 on Twitter. And feel free to forward our newsletter to interested parties! If you were forwarded this letter, you can subscribe here, and check the archive here.
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