Thread by @shayshinecastle

OK, we're talking BI.
Jones: Is there any other way for us to influence BI's behavior?

Carr giving a summary of action so far.

I just wanna say, it's again past 11 p.m. and Adam Swetlik is the only city council candidate here. THIS IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT! But there are so many candidates I've never seen here, and he is here every. freaking. week.

OK, again on BI: Boulder isn't spending and city $$ on those contracts. BI pays for the off-duty officers.

Brockett was the one to say he wasn't comfortable with the arrangement.

Per Carr.

Carr asked retired police chief Greg Testa if BI could find other security services than the city. Originally, it was decided they could use private security.

But Testa was concerned about not providing public safety for political reasons.

"We protect everybody and we do it without favor and without any political influence." (Carr)

Westboro Baptist Church, gun protest, Black Lives Matter.. all of these had off-duty officers there.

"We don't generally take direction from a single council member," Carr says. "I do try to avoid political issues on something that should be straightforward."

Carr takes the blame for "talking to the chief and talking him into something he didn't want to do."

Brockett: I appreciate you hearing my concerns. I didn't tell you to do anything nor would you have followed direction from me as one council member. It's not appropriate.

Carr: It's not unusual for council members to call me and express concerns.

Police chief sets the criteria for who gets off-duty patrols and who doesn't. Here's who doesn't: liquor stores and pot operations.

Young: If council starts setting the criteria, "you start to politicize the police department."

Carlisle: Can BI not afford adequate other security?

Why does police dept get to decide?

City manager decides for the police, per the charter.
Brautigam: That's delegated to the chief of police. It's "core" to the council/manager form of gov't.

"The buck stops here," she says.

"The police chief knows better what public safety issues arise than I do," she says. "That's why we have a police chief."

Yates: Is this a policy recommendation that the oversight board might make?

"He could listen to them or not, but it seems to me this could be something they weigh in on."

Weaver: The reason police don't off-duty for pot, booze is that they're also doing stings.

You could end up having a biz hire a cop who is supposed to be policing them. I don't see that conflict with other biz, he says.

Weaver: "We're a political body. We should try to influence BI. But that doesn't mean it's fair for our police to provide unequal protection."

"We do have options; they just probably aren't direction to our police."

Brockett: Obviously we can't control the actions of a company, but we can play a facilitator role.

Young reads an excerpt from a 2015 L.A. Times about ankle monitoring of immigrants, which began in 2010.

"This is a structural problem at a different level of gov't," Young says. "This was a federal policy that was set, and companies will move in to fill that void."

Questions "efficacy" of having convos with BI.

Yates asks why a private co. would use Boulder PD vs. private security.

Carlisle answers. She asked an off-duty officer at Whole Foods. He said: Police are able to perform the actions of a police officer that private security can't.

Jones: It's also the legitimacy of the uniform
Carlisle: They can arrest someone
Young: And enforce laws
Brockett: But not company policies

It's at odds with our sanctuary city policy, but there's not much we can do RE: police, Jones says.
Brockett echoes.

"If we're denying these services to one co, what other co may we deny them to?" he says. "It's a slippery slope."

Morzel: "Maybe we wield some power" in other ways over BI to get them to "sit down and talk with our citizens."

I think the "other ways" was really just asking BI.

Weaver: I feel like we can do more than just write letters to our state/fed elected officials. We can write resolutions.

This policy does go back further than now, Weaver says, but the enforcement has intensified. "People are at a breaking point."

BI "might pay attention" to a strongly worded letter, he says.

If they don't respond, let's do a resolution aimed not at a specific co but things we don't want to see as a sanctuary city.

Carlisle: "This is a corporation. As we know, corporations have no conscious, generally speaking."
Jones: "They respond to public pressure."

Something I forgot to note (but I have before): PERA (Colorado public employee pension) invests in GEO Group, BI's owner.

So all city employees are invested in the co., too, through their pensions.

Weaver just pronounced "subsequent" as "sub-SEA-quent"

This is unacceptable.

OK, back to the biz at hand: Council is going to send a letter to BI requesting they recommence discussions with immigrant advocates. The city's lobbyist will write it.

If BI declines, council will do a resolution.

Brautigam: We'll send around a draft letter, you can tweak it and hopefully we'll get it out early next week.

That's it for tonight. @threadreaderapp please unroll, last of the night. Thank you!