Public Comment: Concord City Council Regular Meeting

Join us for the Concord City Council Regular Meeting.
You can access the Agenda and instructions to join the City Council’s Zoom meeting here: https://stream.ci.concord.ca.us/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=540&doctype=1
There will be a few opportunities for public comment – we have laid out some talking points below!

7/28 City Council Meeting Public Comments Talking Points

General Public Comments

• Call for 2 additional City Council Study Session Meetings and a series of Town Hall meetings. One Study Session with subject matter experts in Macro Social Work and Racial Equity. Another Study Session with presentations from community non-profits who are providing vital services in Concord. A town hall meeting in each district so there can be a back and forth with the public more than the 3 minutes of public comment available at regular city council meetings and study sessions.
• Call for a civilian oversight body that is separate from the Police Department
• Call for the public release of police misconduct reports and hot spot mapping of patrol presence.

Consent Calendar Item 4b
We will not be asking to pull this item from the consent calendar. These points are just in case someone else pulls the item from the consent calendar and the item gets discussed. We will make public comments if that happens.

• Reiterate the need for further conversation with experts, community non-profits, and the people here in Concord.
• Call for a 3rd party analysis of Public Safety spending as a whole in Concord, rather than just police position data.
• Reiterate that we want to remove duties from the police (responses to mental health calls and calls about our unhoused neighbors).
  

Consent Calendar Item 4e
We will be asking to pull this item from the consent calendar. This item is accepting funding from DOJ to fund police overtime due to COVID.

• How much time did staff spend applying for this grant?
• Why hasn’t the city applied for grants for service organizations and non-profits providing vital relief to Concord families during COVID?
• Recommend accepting the money and then moving an equal amount of money from the police department into nonprofits providing crisis aid during COVID.
• Regarding the officer scheduling that resulted in the overtime costs: When officers were on quarantine for two weeks between active 7 day work periods, were they on the city payroll or were they on California Unemployment benefits?