EscInd: Weekly Action Plan for May 31, 2021
Welcome to Escondido Indivisible’s weekly action plan for May 31, 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.
Events
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 Texas Republicans finalize bill that would enact stiff new voting restrictions and make it easier to overturn election results and They tried to overturn the 2020 election. Now they want to run the next one.
- Contact Senator Feinstein and Senator Padilla and express support for H.R.1/S.1 to strengthen our democracy. Thank them for being cosponsors 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 Police Reform In San Diego A Year After George Floyd's Death, George Floyd Was Also a Father and A Year After George Floyd's Murder, Coping With The Effects Of Racial Trauma.
- Contact Assemblymember Waldron and ask her to support SB-2 to create a decertification process for peace officers. SB-2 passed the Senate 26-9. Senator Jones voted no to holding police accountable for misconduct or criminal conviction four times during the three hearings and on the Senate floor. See #TeamJustice Supports SB2 (with an email template for Senator Jones), SB-2 Fact Sheet and Police Decertification Bill Moves Forward (scroll down).
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 enforcements 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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