Thread by @Grassroots_News

Are you curious what the joint city council budget proposal really means? How does it measure up to community demands to #DefundAPD by $220 Million and reallocate to R.E.A.L. solutions that #FundCommunityNotPolicing?

Here's a thread 🧵 1/x

We did some digging so we're breaking down what the "$150 Million" proposal really means. Here's the proposal: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d… #DefundAPD #FundCommunityNotPolicing 2/x

The current budget proposal includes only $23 Million in immediate cuts & reallocation - versus the **$220 Million** Grassroots Leadership and CCU are demanding. 3/x

The remaining $127 Million of the proposal is divided into a "Decouple Fund" and "Reimagine Public Safety Fund. This is an accounting change that shifts the money into independent accounts outside of APD.

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HOWEVER, APD will still be able to access this money to continue the functions outlined under these categories until the City Manager and Council come up with an alternative.

So, this represents an intended, not actual or immediate change. 5/x

Also, some of the items in the "Decouple" and "Reimagine public safety fund" could easily end up fully or partially back under APD after the "reenvisioning process" because of legal issues or unwillingness by some council members to consider firing sworn officers. 6/x

There is nowhere close to enough money reallocated in the current proposal to remedy long-standing inequities for communities of color that @ccucoalition describes in detail here: facebook.com/watch/live/?v=… 7/x

With @austin_DSA & @atxliberation, we held a People's Tribunal outside City Hall.

Directly impacted people gave evidence for charges of displacement, underfunding of public health, police brutality, & anti-immigrant policies & found the city guilty. facebook.com/watch/live/?v=… 8/x

Instead of a punitive response, the community's verdict was that to atone for the harm the city's decisions have caused, the council must #FundCommunityNotPolicing in the amount of $220 Million. 9/x

But City Council continues to refuse accountability for the ways their refusal to act has harmed communities of color - by continuing to fund APD's violence and refusal to allocate substantial money to R.E.A.L. solutions. 10/x

.@ccucoalition demands that ALL $220 Million be reallocated into R.E.A.L. solutions:
- $90M: RISE Fund
- $4M: Equity Office
- $10M: Austin Public Health
- $115M: Low-income housing (A “public strike fund” to buy land, apt bldgs & support families with homes in flood plains) 11/x

In the current proposal, the only funding towards these R.E.A.L. Solutions are:
- $3.7M: Austin Public Health
- $6.5M: supportive housing & services for homeless people, which is related but distinct from the funding that will slow displacement of currently housed residents. 12/x

There are additional items that could be cut immediately from APD that are not mentioned anywhere in this proposal - even in the pots of money to be "reimagined" later - such as surveillance, ARIC, and the Riverside Togetherness Project. 13/x

Our report with @JustFuturesLaw and @mijente describes how this massive surveillance infrastructure is funneling information to ICE and DHS leading to deportations and separation of Austin families, as well as surveillance of activists. bit.ly/ATXbigsecret 14/x

This proposal provides no instruction to even investigate these surveillance contracts or any reallocation towards universal deportation defense funding for immigrant communities that have been and continue to be impacted by these policies. 15/x

.@CM_Renteria, whose southeastern Austin district is one of the most overpoliced in the city has been conspicuously absent from these budget conversations although his constituents (largely Latinx, Black, and immigrant) are some of the most impacted. 16/x

A few months after officers Christopher Taylor and Karl Krycia had just killed #MaurisDeSilva, APD put them back on the street with the Riverside Togetherness Project, a "community policing" program to "revitalize" East Austin. facebook.com/watch/?v=24316… 17/x

Predictably, the result was more deadly APD violence against BIPOC when Christopher Taylor murdered #MikeRamos. @austintexasgov is still not reviewing this & other "community policing" & excessive patrol strategies putting more police presence in Black & Brown neighborhoods. 18/x

Then there are items that the current proposal places in the "reimagine fund" like overtime, explorers, mounted patrol, parks and lake patrol, and the k-9 unit that are functions that don't need to exist and should be cut immediately and reallocated to R.E.A.L. solutions. 19/x

Yes, this means reducing sworn officers, not just shuffling them around.

Yes, this is what we are really asking—to reduce the size of APD so that it cannot exercise this scale of violence against our community. 20/x

“Reimagining public safety” does NOT mean simply reorganizing departments or taking the same functions that APD currently performs and moving them, complete with their current staff and culture, to a civilian department. 21/x

"Reimagining public safety" does not mean delaying things we could defund now because @austintexasgov does not yet have the political courage to fire sworn officers.

22/x

Even when talking about alternatives such as mental health crisis response and addiction treatment, we will need the leadership of directly impacted people to ensure that the alternatives we create prioritize their agency and are not infiltrated by a policing mentality. 23/x

When we say “reimagine public safety”, it’s a step beyond defunding the police.

It means: let’s imagine a world where we don’t rely on cops, cages, and other punitive approaches to keep us safe. 24/x

Let’s imagine a world where our basic needs are met and we can create new ways to care for each other and collectively unlearn unhealthy ways that we have been socialized to interact with each other and deal with our trauma that leads to further violence. 25/x

.@austintexasgov, community supports the moment to #DefundAPD and to #FundCommunityNotPolice. You can use this moment to make bold change that departs from ATX's legacy of using incremental reform to rebuff true transformative solutions that BIPOC have long called for. 26/x

This proposal is a baby step.

It’s NOT bold change and does NOT rectify long-standing inequities experienced by BIPOC. We are taking action in greater numbers than ever before in your lifetimes & will be watching you as you deliberate on this budget. #DefundAPD 27/x